Perhaps what voters are really rejecting in the budget is not just a series of policy measures, but its potential to accelerate the unravelling of the kind of Australia they want to live in, write Peter Lewis and Jackie Woods.

Two great traditions of middle Australia are pitted against each other in the aftermath of the Coalition Government's controversial first budget. It's Downward Envy in the red corner v the Fair Go in the blue.

The Abbott Government may have put its money on Downward Envy (they get how much welfare?) but as the gruelling political fight continues it looks like Australians' hankering for a Fair Go will win out.

With the Coalition flagging in the polls, much is being made of the Government's failure to sell its agenda. If voters could just understand the detail of proposed measures sentiment would settle down, is the soothing self-narrative.

But what if the problem here isn't in the detail but the big picture?

This week's Essential Report suggests that public concern this budget disproportionately hits the vulnerable has collided with a growing fear Australia is losing its egalitarian spirit.

Perhaps it's not just the budget measures, but the perceived changing fabric of society that Australians are not prepared to accept.

Q. Do you think Australian society is more or less equal and fair than 20 years ago?

Total

Total more fair/equal

28%

Total less fair/equal

43%

A lot more equal and fair

7%

A little more equal and fair

21%

About the same

23%

A little less equal and fair

21%

A lot less equal and fair

22%

Don't know

7%

Despite the popular narrative about economic growth creating a rising tide for all, many of us see the opposite occurring over the past 20 years. And that matters, because equality and fairness matter.

Q. How important is equality/fairness to Australian society?

Equality

Fairness

Total important

89%

92%

Total not important

7%

6%

Very important

51%

62%

Somewhat important

38%

30%

Not very important

6%

4%

Not at all important

1%

2%

Don't know

3%

2%

Nearly all of us think equality and fairness are important to some degree with high numbers rating them very important. On both these measures a budget that disproportionately targets lower-income earners, pensioners, students and welfare recipients can only be regarded as a step backwards.

But perhaps the most surprising finding from this week's poll is that more than double the number of people who think the standard of living will improve for the next generation, think that it will be worse. And a third think it will be a lot worse.

Q. Do you think the standard of living for the next generation will be better or worse than today?

Total

Total better

21%

Total worse

48%

A lot better

4%

A little better

17%

Much the same

27%

A little worse

13%

A lot worse

35%

Don't know

4%

After more than 100 years of growth and prosperity, rising living standards from one generation to the next, nearly half of all Australians have lost faith that this is the journey they are on.

This finding is not purely the result of Australian whining. Indeed, according to the ITUC global poll, conducted in 14 countries by EMC earlier this year, Australia is actually one of the more optimistic nations. When it comes to the future, 51 per cent of all respondents globally don't think the next generation will get a decent job. (In Australia it's only 39 per cent.)

Around the globe, people have lost faith in their economies as a vehicle of prosperity and see them more and more as battlegrounds between their interests and those of the rich and powerful. And it is not a fight they think they are winning.

This is the landing point in the surge in inequality that Thomas Piketty charts in his global academic hit Capitalism in the 21st Century, a work that crunches data over the past 100 years to build a profile of inequality built on fact, not ideology.

Piketty's theory is that inequality can be calculated by looking at the balance of capital and wages in the economy.

His data shows that while capital reigned supreme in the early years of the 20th century, it waned through the Depression and world wars with rising levels of equality through to the 1970s at which point the inequality curve began rising again.

The free market economic agenda, selling off assets and the creation of new financial markets saw capital's share of growth increase, a surge that has continued apace into the 21st century.

In the context of Piketty's data, voters' anxiety about declining fairness and equality in recent decades appears to be based not just in nostalgia for a rose-coloured past, but in a very real economic trajectory.

This week's polling suggests voters don't think the market economy is delivering the kind of society they want and explains why arguments from Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey that the best thing they can do for the economy is generate growth by making life easier for business are falling flat.

It's clear the budget has struck a nerve in the electorate - but perhaps what voters are really rejecting is not just a series of policy measures, but its potential to accelerate the unravelling of the kind of Australia they want to live in.

The survey was conducted online from June 6-10, 2014 and is based on 1019 respondents.

Peter Lewis is a director of Essential Media Communications. View his full profilehere. Jackie Woods is a communications consultant atEssential Media Communications. View her full profilehere.

Comments (420)

the egg:

11 Jun 2014 2:23:29pm

Totally agree with this article.

Also very offended by our windbag treasurer who has probably never done a decent days work in his life telling me/us that we have to raise productivity etc (PS Buzzword for slash wages and conditions for everyone other than their crowd).

I'll tell you one thing. I've lived under governments from Churchill to Thatcher and since coming to OZ from Hawke to this miserable mob but I've never seen a government that has succeeded in engendering so much hatred and opposition from the general public. and it's nothing to do with envy.

This mob are taking the piss and almost seem to be enjoying the class war they are creating.

MJLC:

11 Jun 2014 2:52:24pm

And I totally agree with you Egg. Very well put.

Unfortunately (as you would have no doubt observed during your long sojourn), the Liberal Party has morphed from a Menzian tradition of being essentially positive folk with a vision and an enthusiasm for making the nation a better place for all into a nasty, embittered, snarling sheltered workshop for the terminally aggrieved. It's a hospice where unhappy people who see the whole world against them go to die. If we didn't have dole bludgers, boat people, or students et al already, they'd have to invent them. In the old days Liberals would come to power with a policy platform - this dross only arrives with a hit list and a salivating enthusiasm to implement it.

Personally I could excuse them for "taking the piss" if they poured it over themselves - it's hard to like folk who want to serve it up to you as cocktails instead.

MJLC:

11 Jun 2014 4:25:48pm

I've never looked at political party membership numbers that way before Colmery. It certainly does appear to make unions and their members beacons of acceptability by comparison.

As far as the final thought goes, good luck trying to get that up-and-running in 21st century Australia - when you even get huge numbers of young folk telling us they don't see any point in directly electing an Australian to be their Head of State (I wonder if they've bothered to consider what that's saying about them - so young, and they've already decided they're too useless to consider themselves up to the task), then I think you'll find it's pretty much game over on that one.

I suspect it'll probably stay that way until some other folk elsewhere decide they wouldn't mind appropriating the real estate and moving on the torpid drones currently occupying it and making a real fist at trying to create something worthwhile here themselves. If they get here within the next few decades there's a good chance I can still be around to welcome them down on the beach.

tomtoot:

11 Jun 2014 8:00:03pm

@MJLC:- The young like so many of us oldies are bemused and confused regarding conviction politics?

You can chastise and abuse them, (the young) but, one day they will awaken.Your view of politics and a fair go may well appeal or repel them as they assimilate the current situation.In my opinion we now have clowns in parliament, the LNP - they consider youth as bludgers - they want them to not receive any benefit whatsoever, unless they can afford higher education.Pensioners can get stuffed as far as this LNP circus goes?The sick and disabled are fair game for chastisement and ridicule - subject to a levy and God knows what else in the future - so much for bi-partisan support on an NDIS?

Democracy does not exist here yet in Australia - BUT!, one day it will.

Village Chief:

12 Jun 2014 7:40:07am

Well JLC, it all depends on whether the newly landed are a tribe of Obeids or other such who want to use Australia to become the biggest, fattest village chief of the world's biggest island village or whether they are Utopians striving for a better world.

Rabbitthole:

The Corporations have been put in charge of the corporations, what do you expect?

As for membership of political parties, its makes no difference at all. The leadership of these parties is geared towards getting money from corporate donations and pleasing the US.

It is the leader of the gang that defines policy settings, not the members unfortunately. The gang banging mentality is a MP or member must support the leader, no matter what. MP's do not represent there communities they represent the leader of the gang, or otherwise they are out on their ear.

The people of Australia have been sold out by the ALPLNPGr's and there is no turning back. We own nearly as much as what we receive and we will be in debt in perpetuity thanks to these corporations.

The corporations change the constitution every year at COAG to suit themselves and persecute the people, they have completely lost the plot and we are only just waking up to the fact.

ram:

11 Jun 2014 4:51:32pm

You are right! As recent NSW ICAC investigations have shown, it seem both Liberal and Labor report to the same identical mobsters. Prosecutions are recommended by ICAC but still NOTHING happens, yet the police continue to arrest hundreds of protesters per day blocking sites of ILLEGAL politically connected "mine" developments. This all could get very ugly very quickly.

dman:

Gordon:

11 Jun 2014 4:37:58pm

While agreeing with you that the debate is too febrile for the Australia we both know (remember?) and love, you only have to look at the snarky comments here to see that embittered, snarling sheltered workshops for the terminally aggrieved are not limited to one side of politics.

Unless the idiots on either extreme ends of politics are disowned by their more moderate cousins this will never change. I would happily saw the branch off to the left of both Bolt & Jones. What would you saw off to balance the tree I wonder?

Alfie:

Sheoakbloke:

11 Jun 2014 6:43:09pm

You're entitled to that opinion here, at the ABC. Do you really think if what you are saying was true that you would be?Do really think I would be able to refute your comment were it aired on the Bolt Report/ Alan Jones? the Telegraph?.. Honestly now without gagging yourself with your blue tie;)

John51:

11 Jun 2014 8:34:52pm

Alfie, come on you can do better than that. To put the likes of Fairfax and the ABC in the same comment at the likes of Jones and Bolt is an absurdity. But I suppose that is the problem for you in that you can't find anyone on the right to compare to them. There are no shock jocks on the left even remotely like those two.

aussieinjapan:

11 Jun 2014 11:13:28pm

The total of which is about 18% for the ABC and I understand that Fairfax Media, the next biggest publisher, controlled just 25%, based on research by Fact Check. Given that News is overwhelming right wing (I don't think that there are many people who doubt this) and the other TV networks other than the ABC are also in the same boat as News to varying degrees, I don't think that the left gets adequate space to get its' opinions heard.

Rather it is the case that those with alternate opinions to those of the big networks are pictured as being "left wing" when in actual case people who have long being considered as being 'left wing' would actually say that Fairfax and ABC are middle ground.

It shows how the information we get is being filtered so that instead of getting an ambidexterous view point the media is being pushed, and hence us, more to the right.

tc21:

o_Owe:

12 Jun 2014 9:38:16am

It is funny how those of self-interest (right) argue that media proprietors are able to use their media to promote their political interests, but the ABC -owned by the people of Australia - is not allowed to do the same!!

I see the ABC expressing views of the self-interested substantially more than I see 'those with concern for others' expressed in Murdoch's 'mydear'! (an onamatopoeiac expression of outrage by their 'readers').

MJLC:

11 Jun 2014 5:22:23pm

I'd quite happily prune Christine Milne, Lee Rhiannon, and Sarah Hanson-Young to balance up my side of the shrub (and cope with the inevitable charges of misogyny as best I can) and do a general tidy-up of all the nutbags who can ONLY argue everything in terms of a morality play (Note: NOT saying you can't see issues through that prism, it's just a huge annoyance watching them go down this route when an economic argument can convey the point equally as effectively and stand a chance of changing some minds) Gordon. Having voted for Scott Ludlam not terribly many moons ago it'd provide him with a bit more sunlight to grow and see how he develops (plenty of scope for improvement if properly tended I'll wager, but you never truly know for sure).

That said, there's three serving politicians on my notional side vs. none on yours - and considering the two individuals you nominated are also lightweights into the bargain, I'm guessing that puts the foliage firmly leaning into your yard at present with the roots on my side straining to stop it tipping over completely.

Mitor the Bold:

11 Jun 2014 6:41:26pm

Bolt and Jones are light entertainment performers, not politicians. They are mere mouthpieces for the media barons, miners and authoritarian government ministers.

You'd have to cut the political branch to the left of Abbott (there's plenty of space there for a jittery chainsaw) leaving only Turnbull from the current ministry. Morrison, Andrews, the Bishops, Hockey (hanging from his fingertips claiming he's been led astray) - all would perish.

Remember when public education and health, both free at the point of access; secular schools free from the influence of Jesus; pensions generous enough to allow dignity in retirement; a welfare safety net to allow people to get back on their feet in hard times - remember when these were 'centre' politics? Now they've been cast as extremist leftie idealism.

stalga:

Siti:

12 Jun 2014 12:34:21pm

Mitor - well spotted! Knowing that money goes from Australian tax payers to International Mining Companies who then donate to the Liberals (liberal when it comes to greed) after which thesemining companies then employ former Liberal Parliamentarians as Advisers and never mind the scientist, the sojourner, the dweller,or the seller of useful brawn and brain products.

Nina:

Re shape the whole tree start anew rethink the whole approach, stump the thing. Australia is renowned for being unique... lets take the very best values and rethink the whole lot.

the reason we are stuck, is, the rationality of money has limited the language and narrowed the concerns the politicians are prepared to talk about.

Putting a dollar value on most of what used to be a free society has restricted the conversation and the preoccupations. I think we are a dangerous and risky nation who can take on the whole conservative mindset both Lib and Lab and rework a new and better social process.

itman:

Query:

12 Jun 2014 5:21:53am

Wonderful comment, Nina! Only, if we don't expose the psychopaths among the captains of politics and industry it'll never come to fruition. Perhaps we should have a public register of such persons, not unlike the paedophile register the mob is braying for?

Pert:

12 Jun 2014 1:44:12am

No sawing required, only a critical examination of the two extremes and the commentators in between.

It should be mandatory for the voting public to change the channel from the commercial news to the ABC (or vice versa) occasionally. Moreover, we should all have to pass a quick pop quiz on government, election platforms, current affairs and major points of party divergence before we are allowed to vote.

The public should hold themselves responsible for providing the balance between left- and right-wing ideologues at the polls.

Andrew Thomas:

11 Jun 2014 5:40:11pm

Thankyou MJLC for your posting. Often I get accused of being a "leftie" or some such. But I am not anti-Liberal. Far from it. But this current government is not Liberal. Conservatism is not Liberal by definition, and this current government takes conservatism so far right, parts of it look like bordering on fascist.

Is it too much to ask to have an Australian Government that taxes the rich a little more (I include myself in this bunch) and produces policy that actually demonstrates forward thinking (i.e. R&D; new industry; science based decision making). Currently all we seem to have is increased taxes / reduced benefits to those who need them the most, the better off getting off mostly scott-free, and no policy what-so-ever that provides some sort of plan beyond what is left of the tired mining boom.

Depressing stuff. I am ashamed to be an Australian as we move towards the great leap backwards socially, technologically and environmentally.

MJLC:

11 Jun 2014 6:17:12pm

I'm afraid I view the direction this country has wedged itself into as being one huge, time-wasting, self-defeating, exercise in BS Andrew.

From what I can see of the world, countries which are truly successful have come finally to the understanding the society needs excellent capitalists to make the money wisely AND excellent socialists to spend it wisely - this isn't an either/or issue, it's one where both "sides" are respected for what they do best and are harnessed in tandem to get the finest overall result a disparate group of people can throw together. Excellence - in whatever form - should be valued, and if you can throw respect into the mix (getting past this idea that without "my side" the whole thing falls over) then you've got the strongest structure to stare down an uncertain world. Anything less, and you're spending time arguing amongst yourselves and not concentrating on the real threats to your existence from outside.

It's very rare I manage to pen something that puts all combatants off in equal measure, but I presume I may have done so here.

kenj:

11 Jun 2014 7:11:32pm

MJLC, you have misunderstood what has been happening. Just after WW2 and on till 70s banks were making small margins on mortgages and made loans to real businesses on reasonable terms. Increasingly, banks -- and financial markets in general -- have taken on an aggressive investment role so that now in the US Bank of America makes only 10% of its income from traditional lending, the rest from share market trading, high risk derivatives programs (high risk to bak cash savers, that is), asset buyouts on a massive scale. All of the major US and European banks follow this pattern. They also work through highly artificial means to reduce their tax contributions from a previous low 20% to the situation now where many major US banks and corporations pay no tax at all. Finance used to account for about 7% of GDP. In the US that figure is now 25%. The banks there are refusing to loan to the mainstream economy because they intend to crash it and buy its assets at fire sale prices. The financial markets are increasingly negating any idea of a social contract leaving the majority of the tax burdens to fall on ordinary wage earners and smaller businesses.

Pert:

12 Jun 2014 12:58:33am

What's an "excellent capitalist"?

Is it a CEO like Eric Schmidt, for example? Someone who presides over an multinational corporation with a company mantra of "do no evil" while being proud of (and makes no apology for) his companies complex tax arrangements (arrangements which undermine principles of tax fairness and our tax base)?

Excellent capitalists excel at exploitation. Their only ethical concern is to maximise company profits. Sending work offshore to unregulated sweat shops, campaigning to erode worker's entitlements to reduce labour costs or indulging in double Irish-double Dutch sandwiches is just due diligence.

There is not much left over for socialists to spend when everything is privately owned and wealth is not subject to redistribution.

Australia needs to have a serious discussion about capitalism in terms of "excellence".

Nell:

11 Jun 2014 8:58:32pm

Yes, Andrew, today was a particularly depressing day in Abbottland as we take the great leap backwards.

I listened to the distinguished Simon McKeon addressing the National Press Club about the great Australian brain drain, the failure of successive Australian governments to help develop our fantastic research outcomes into businesses but that these are quickly picked up and developed by businesses overseas.

Then I watched Tony Abbott pursuing the militarist narrative that he likes to surround himself with - he's trying to outdo General Franco in the grunt stakes. When is he not being feted with gun salutes, cajoling with uniformed men whether fire fighters or stock brokers. Its all one big mess of steaming testosterone no doubt choreographed by his lady minder. Not one of the items of footage featured him in the company of a woman of distinction - that would be bad for his image as he would certainly be shown up.

However, as a woman I find his over-pumped machoism sickening and wonder if it does not in the end show him up as somebody deeply nervous in the contemporary world of well-educated and professional women. I'm sure that was the basis of the strategy for the avoidance of a meeting with Christine Lagarde.

Abbott's self-conscious deliberate ockerness is most particularly depressing as was his appalling French. Is it a culture war or is it a war on culture? It is certainly a war on women.

Andrew Thomas:

12 Jun 2014 8:25:49am

Hi Nell,

It's good to read that there are other Australians out there that a disturbed at what they see. For a man who purports to be from a strong christian background, I see no evidence in the man's actions. Like his ockerness, his Christian claims also seem to be false.

But what is more disturbing is that so many Australians voted for him. If he and his team of backward thinking dinosaurs are re-elected at the next election, it may be that the egalitarian Australia we grew up in and the "fair go" is officially dead. And if we insist on ignoring the need to develop our economy, are living standards will follow a similar path.

Realist:

11 Jun 2014 2:57:59pm

Creating a 'class war'? Oh please! What absurd paranoia this site promotes.

What 'entitlement' are you going to lose?

If you really have experienced governments from Churchill as you claim (he retired in 1955) then even the changes to the pension won't impact you. The increase to the age for eligibility doesn't kick in until 2035 and you will most likely be gone by then.

Your whinge is just one more example of the confected angst based on absurd generalisations. At your age you should be past such juvenile nonsense.

Honest Johnny:

11 Jun 2014 4:09:11pm

Excuse me! This whole budget 'crisis' was started with the Howard tax cuts, when he wittingly took Australia's operational (tax) revenue below expenditure and masked it with one-off asset sales. He probably miscalculated with the mining boom but once he let the jeanie out of that bottle its very difficult to put back in (witness 'Temporary' levy, service cuts etc). The whole Tory debt and deficit fetish is really only political, considering it was their bloke who started it in the first place.

Alphamikefoxtrot:

Alpo:

11 Jun 2014 7:59:18pm

Alpha, I told you so many times, even the Business Community itself stopped Swan from pursuing a surplus, judging that a contraction of the economy through savings would have affected business and plunged us into recession. But Hockey seems to be happy to ideologically press ahead.... and look at the effects: business confidence going down, consumer confidence going down.... The Budget from Hell is going to Hell...

Sheoakbloke:

11 Jun 2014 10:51:31pm

It's only set the get worse as Abbott has now announced "That it is only right that companies pay tax in the country in which they derive their profits". So Adriana, if and when they get their Galilee Basin coal mine operating ( and every other exporter for that matter ) should only pay tax in the country of product destination where their profits are derived? After 457's are loosened up a little more, we will have resource companies open slather ripping out the best we have to offer and all for the price of State royalties only. No Jobs, profits or tax contribution to the Australian economy and they get to claim back 100% of their capital outlay from ATO in 2 years as well? Open for business or looking to be roughly rogered by your friendly resource giant?

chalkie:

Yet it is those most able to afford taxes who are getting the greatest tax cuts, yet the poorest bear the greates impacts.

The only promises Abbott is keeping is to cut multinational miners' taxes; to reduce business taxes and to harm the poorest.

Their 'tea party Taliban' agenda crept out when the Commission of Audit let the cat out of the bag by proposing to slash the minimum wage - even though this was entirely outside of its terms of reference.

Of course, this kind of thing is COMPLETELY part of the brutal class war being waged on the lowest 80%.

Realist:

"Yet it is those most able to afford taxes who are getting the greatest tax cuts,"

Actual examples please.

The only tax increase was an adjustment to the top tax bracket. How is that a "greatest cut"?

48% of Australians actually receive more from government than they pay in tax. They are net recipients.

Time to put up or shut up. Exactly where are these tax increases on the lowest 80%? And just to help you out the pension has NOT been decreased. Only the rate of increase proposed by Labor has been changed to CPI. No cut, just an adjusted rate of increase!

Comrade:

11 Jun 2014 5:27:44pm

My god I'm sick of this 48% mis-representation. 25% of Australians are retirees. Perhaps you feel that self-funded retirees, having paid tax their whole lives and provided for their retirement, should pay some more tax?

I think I think:

11 Jun 2014 7:37:32pm

Paul, it might not include retirees but it does include every single person just joining the workforce, who by nature start earning little until they develop their career. The stats are still woefully skewed by this, I mean its not like all these howling contributors were ever in a low tax bracket, right?

Mark of SA:

11 Jun 2014 10:06:49pm

"Perhaps you feel that self-funded retirees, having paid tax their whole lives and provided for their retirement, should pay some more tax?"

I've been a tax-payer continually for 50 years - and still am. My question is to you is "Why should I continue to pay tax when you don't think you should because you are on a perpetual holiday (comparatively speaking)?"

AE:

11 Jun 2014 6:55:27pm

I agree with you Realist. This lefty whinger Piketty, whose work has been referenced in this lefty whinger article as though it is beyond question, is the economic John Pilger it seems. Read the review of Piketty's book in The Economist if you want to see the huge holes in Mr Piketty's "non-fiction" work. I'll take The Economist reviewer's word over the non-economists getting paid cents-per-word on The Drum.

Red Rooster:

12 Jun 2014 11:18:17am

I know all that. I worked on the project during the Hawke years and helped to facilitate it. Before its introduction tax was paid twice, at the company end and at the shareholder end. My point is that the revenue that once came in has been reduced to the benefit of Corporations, and businesses, that are, in most case the major shareholders in companies that pay high dividends, as well as wealthy individual shareholders. For example Mr Moneybags has 100,000 shares in CBA and it pays an interim dividend of $2 per sharethat would give our mate Moneybags a payment of $200,000 tax free. Not a bad little earner is it. Also please note that before CBA was sold off, such profits would have gone into consolidated revenue, along with profits from Telstra, Qantas, etc. The question is WHO IS PAYING TAX apart from our old PAYE mates?

Anna:

Yes, 0f the Coalition's 48% of Australians supposedly not doing their bit includes 25% being children too young to work, self-funded retirees and age pensioners.

The even better figure is that in the last year of the Howard government, 60% of families paid no net tax and the Treasurer crowed about how good that was:

"Cutting taxes has actually been a way of delivering benefits to families, particularly low-income families and bear this in mind - now, under the changes of this government, something like 60 per cent of Australian families are paying no net tax."

The welfare counted includes family tax benefits (most of which John Howard brought in, because he saw raising children as important for our society).

This government would rather just import a ready-to-go workforce on 457 visas, and only help the well off to raise children by paying them the extravagant PPL.

Arch File:

11 Jun 2014 9:41:58pm

Of those 48%, how many are the very rich with greasy accountants, politicians getting money to go bike riding, weddings; miners claiming losses while making huge profits and shipping them overseas, cashed up landed gentry who made fortunes from fire sales of public assets like the Commmonwealth bank?

Sheoakbloke:

11 Jun 2014 11:30:48pm

That 48% spend most of what they earn and derive from the government. They don't save it. The use it to make the other 52% a bit wealthier and/or feel useful. Take them away and see what happens to your Westfarmers share dividend and all your other consumption based profits.

The GST ensures a good deal of what they spend ends up back in the coffers again. Bitch about them if you like but I'm not sure you would do their menial tasks patching your roads and emptying your bins of wasted food and disposable nappy or packing your groceries at the checkout

Examples of Tax breaks for the wealthy: "The end of the age of entitlement" has even the wealthiest claiming back 30% rebate of heath insurance premiums and a reduced medicare levysubsidising health insurance companies ( Ford, Holden) so they can pay you a bigger dividend Top rate of personal tax 48% right? but I can sink that into my super fund and only pay 15%Plenty of those 48% you refer to don't get paid enough to get out of the bottom tax bracket of 17%? and spend virtually everything they earn keeping the shareholders at Coles , Westfarmers etc in dividends and their negative geared landlords rent books stamped. It hardly encourages them to save for retirement to be less of a burden on you when they get a 2% discount on their tax as opposed to the 33% reduction received by the other end of the spectrum. When is enough Super enough?. This costs approx $35 billion in forfeited government revenue pa and I doubt that the 48% you refer to are responsible for that. Negative gearing costs another 13.5 Billion forfeited revenue and creates an artificially high real estate market making house ownership and even rental one of the greatest burdens these 48% have to bear. These are just 2 examples of tax benefits that favour the top tax bracket... not just a little bit, a lot.. I would say that maybe you should take your own advice re. "Time to..."PS If you don't like the idea of the government subsidising your dividends with welfare maybe you should consider pushing up minimum wages and letting bracket creep deal with your perceived inequities

Mark of melb:

12 Jun 2014 1:11:39am

Is the pension supplements going to get cut? How about the utility concessions for card holders is that going to be cut too? If an adjustment is downward isn't that a cut? I mean for example, if there are no adjustments each year I be getting $10 extra in income but now because of the adjustment I be getting $8 extra, so is that $2 a cut or increase?

Andrew Thomas:

11 Jun 2014 8:16:35pm

Chalkie,

Good to see there are a few old school Australians still in the mix. Since when did we live in a Country where people seem O.k. with making the poor pay for the rich? So much for a "fair-go". It would seem this is just another empty slogan reflecting an increasingly empty Australian soul.

Reinhard:

Artful Dodger:

11 Jun 2014 4:16:25pm

'No more regressive Labor policies where we pay ourselves more than we can afford'No- lets have more Howard and free market polices where we BORROW more than we can afford to buy stuff we do not need to a point where we are all caught in the financial capitalist debt trap. BTW I agree- lets advance to a budget SURPLUS- let usNot repeal the Carbon TaxFix the MRRT to what Henry suggestedAbolish family trusts - even you must agree that it is unfair that PAYE workers do not have the opportunity for FT/Abolish-negative gearing- super tax benefits.Increase taxes on income above $200K =permanentlyRaise the GST on non essential itemsWell that is a start- oh yeas- and ditch the PPL.

Erika:

11 Jun 2014 5:44:14pm

I wouldn't raise the GST on 'non-essential' items (a) because it would take the BAS back to the bad old days when it acquired nightmarish proportions for small businesses and (b) because what one person considers non-essential may not be the same as what another person considers non-essential. (At present, for example, tampons & sanitary towels do attract GST - which I really think adds insult to injury.)

That doesn't mean that there aren't obvious spending cuts available, for example the additional jet fighters and Mr Abbott's desire to be remembered as the prime minister who gave us roads and roads and more roads. Roads have their uses but it is possible to prioritise road expenditure and delay some projects until the money is available.

Treetop:

11 Jun 2014 9:28:48pm

If a person can afford to buy a $100,000 diamond necklace , they can also afford to pay 20% GST .If Clive Palmer wants to buy a million dollar Royce Rolls , he could afford to pay 20% GST on the purchase Why should GST be put on basic foods or medical costs ?so the poor suffer .The GST should be on a 3 tier system which is nil , 10% and 20%Basics of living should be nil and luxury goods should be 20% GST

Susan:

12 Jun 2014 8:29:27am

We used to have such a system. It was called sales tax. Then the previous liberal government decided to abolish it and bring in the GST. Now we are stuck with the GST, we have to make the best of it.The first thing to consider is - since this government is slashing and burning the public service and expecting 'more with less' that will translate into less people in the ATO making sure that business pays the correct GST. Ultimately, cheats will prosper, and the ordinary Australian will miss out. Doesn't make sense to me.But then I am not trained in double speak, I just see it like it is. Less tax collectors = less tax collected. Think too of the cuts to Centrelink. Massive job losses all around, and less people to process your dole claim. Duh, what could the potential problem possibly be?

Sheoakbloke:

11 Jun 2014 7:46:17pm

Too right. Here's another 30 Billion + saver to add to your list Art. Let's have a look at all these non profit organisations that claim tax free status. Churches ( God's use money?) Charities ( OK so there is some real and some not so real) What about all these political donations to "foundations"? you know? , the ones ICAC keeps bring up. How much tax avoidance and deduction is all about feathering ones own nest (vipers don't have feathers so what are they doing?)

sma the man:

11 Jun 2014 10:56:49pm

You can tax our church if you like. As all our income is gifted, you won't collect a lot. But we should get quite a refund from the donations to charity (10% of the collection is given away - the rest goes to paying the ministers meagre salary and for building maintenance)

aussieinjapan:

11 Jun 2014 11:19:31pm

Claude did you see the Global Financial Crisis coming. I don't think a lot of people did. Or do you remember it happening. Shows how many people have short terms memories of the past. Makes me worry about the period until the next election.

Realist:

Chris L:

11 Jun 2014 5:53:19pm

For me it's people under 30 expected to live on nothing for six months if they find themselves unemployed. There is competition for employment and for education so it's not like the usual answer of "get a job or go back to school" are going to take care of the problem.

Sheoakbloke:

12 Jun 2014 12:31:26am

Too many successive governments state and federal have stripped away TAFE and other training institutions.

Aside from the fact that it is unproductive to constantly retrain for new vocations, as opposed to upgrading skills in existing jobs, affordable housing is rarely available to those who must relocate to find work.

A good example of this was a young woman on Q&A the other week who had completed a degree and started working less than a year ago in a public service position that was to be axed. Should she go back to school and retrain and incur yet more HECS debt? No doubt the government will cite their tertiary and further education broadening of HECS or HELP loans as providing ample capital for the rebuilding of this education system albeit privatized.

Has the Treasurer factored in the cost of supplying this increased access to loan capital? This money comes directly from the government.Because even if he has he must know, with the change of debts, from the present CPI increases to the proposed Government Bond rate interest attributed to individuals through this scheme, the end result will to be create a generation of indebted graduates that will see home ownership an unobtainable dream. At the same time they have removed the incentive to pay back early. Is the government now in competition with other financial institutions by providing capital to students without income, a class of borrowers that have no collateral and generally would only qualify for loan shark agreements? This certainly fits the bank ethos of "privatise the profits , nationalise the debts"

This surely begs the question; Can an individual remove their HECS/HELP debt by declaring bankruptcy? Wouldn't this be the free market way of dealing with unserviceable loans? Can we look forward to the governments of the future making ever larger provisions for bad debt?

SVJ:

12 Jun 2014 7:03:24am

"...get a job or go back to school" are going to take care of the problem."

Actually yes it will. Too many (not all) kids are dropping out of school and work too easily. This may force a few of them to think otherwise, it's not always about getting your desired role in life day one.

I think I think:

11 Jun 2014 7:42:53pm

For me, it is the reduction in university funding, and deregulation which will further hammer those young people Chris mentions above. But I guess you will be able to buy another investment house from under them and claim back the losses from the rent they can't pay you, realist - so I doubt you will have any problem with those changes...

Sheoakbloke:

12 Jun 2014 7:21:37am

At Australian government bond rate ( not CPI ) It will be capped at 6% but will grow at rate much faster than presently. ATM the government gets dollar for dollar in real terms returned. Except if you look at the outstanding billions and consider what that might look like growing at market rate interest you might think a lot of them may well never pay their debt back. BTW one of the reasons our dollar has remained so high is the comparatively attractive return. Cheapest money? No . That significant wage you refer to is being reduced by the government to less significant. So defer the family and the mortgage a few more years ( and then seek government assistance in IVF when your old enough to afford to breed). The future is in fine hands with this line of thinking too be sure.

I think I think:

hugh carnaby-sirius:

11 Jun 2014 11:00:12pm

The entitlement I'm pissed off about is the one that politicians aren't losing. The $100 million dollars a year ($450,000 per annum, per politician) that they spend on travel and other costs so they can go to bike races, footy finals, investment properties and mates weddings.

Susan:

12 Jun 2014 8:33:06am

The entitlement that could be really problematic is when you front up to the emergency ward of your local hospital with a broken arm, and have to wait for three days to see a doctor because the waiting room is full of people with various ailments who either can't afford or won't pay the $7 to see a doctor (only $2 is going to the doctor by the way, the other $5 is being passed to big business under the table in the way of 'research'. Yeah, research. Why are companies such as those associated with microsoft already circling with interest to see what rich pickings they can get from the people of Australia?). Blind Freddy can see that the poorest will turn to the emergency ward of the local hospital if they don't have the $ to go to the local doctor. Welcome to America.

hugh carnaby-sirius:

11 Jun 2014 11:06:38pm

"They" being Angel Gurria, who also thinks we should have a big fat carbon tax, believes in global warning, is against the ever increasing gap between rich and poor, said (in 2012) that Australias economy was strong when Abbott/Hockey were saying it was basket case, and believes that syupluses should be banked for a rainy day (unlike Costello who used his to buy votes). Are you also endorsing those ideas?

Grump3:

the yank:

11 Jun 2014 8:35:17pm

First, you must build consensus around the need for it in the centre of the polity.

If or when you get people on your side with your ideas, you then formulation policies that take into account the equity of the reforms to ensure the centre support holds. The Abbott Government has clearly allowed its political leanings to overly influence its Budget cuts with far too much emphasis placed upon the young and vulnerable

The present schmozzle is primarily the failure of the Abbott Government who, like the two government?s before it, has not prepared and carried the political centre.

Realist:

Stuffed Olive:

11 Jun 2014 3:50:58pm

Some people don't just think of themselves. The OECD only praised the concept of getting back to surplus - I don't think they read the details. They'd be praising a Labor government even more as Labor would have been back in surplus much sooner.

Gary:

11 Jun 2014 5:25:25pm

The commission of audit factored tax cuts into their forward projections. Without these the budget would have come back into surplus anyway. There is no budget crisis - it is a confected crisis to pursue a radical (and carefully hidden at election time) ideological agenda.

hugh carnaby-sirius:

11 Jun 2014 11:12:50pm

So, give us the quotes which show that Angel Gurria directly endorsed the medicare co-payment, the deregulation of universities, the PPL scheme and other details of the budget. I doubt that you can as he has a strong record on social equity and has lectured against the increasing gap between rich and poor.Looks like YOU are just speaking in thought bubbles.

Forrest Gardener:

stalga:

11 Jun 2014 8:31:01pm

I agree Olive. I recall that Alan Kohler said early in the election campaign that whoever wins, they will inherit the best economic conditions in a decade. As regards to fairness/equality, I note that current building figures show that loans for investment properties far exceeded loans for first home buyers(again) and our Mining merchant-come politician is again taking legal action against the QLD govt because he didn't get what he wanted.

Rickbee:

11 Jun 2014 4:38:51pm

Hi Realist,

You state that " By the way, the OECD has praised the budget!" Don't get too excited!

You (and lot of other contributors) seem to have overlooked the point that the Budget is merely a set of projected outcomes for the Budget year and outyears and as such does not reflect what will actually happen but what the Government hopes will happen. The real test of the effectiveness of the budget process is the actual outcomes at the end of year one of the budget cycle.

As you would know there are a great number of unforeseen outside factors which impact upon the Budget. In past years we have seen the GFC, bushfires, floods etc. and no doubt in the future there will be further incidents of this nature where the Govt will need to provide some financial relief. On the other hand of course things like legislation not being passed as predicted can have an effect also.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the OECD can heap all the praise it likes on the Budget - but the fact remains that the Budget is a set of estimates which quickly go out of date.

Realist:

11 Jun 2014 5:11:06pm

"The real test of the effectiveness of the budget process is the actual outcomes at the end of year one of the budget cycle."

I totally agree! Absolutely!

That is what was so damning about each and everyone of Swan's budgets. They never came within a bull's roar of what actually occurred. He never did locate those surpluses he claimed he had delivered did he?

Albo:

You gotta love the complete drivel interpreted into their chosen ant- Coalition narrative by the authors here, based on three generic polling questions !

Is our society more or less equal or fair than 20 years ago ?How important is equality / fairness ?Will standard of living be better or worse for the next generation ?

And Bingo ! The poll answers to these polling questions obviously proves .............." public concern this budget disproportionately hits the vulnerable has collided with a growing fear Australia is losing its egalitarian spirit."

Really ? Great interpretation !As if most respondents weren't going to say equality / fairness is important ?How do those majority of respondents truly believe equality / fairness was better 20 years ago ? I suspect most believing so weren't even around then ! Back then when Labor introduced detention centres, before the age discrimination act, before smokers were massively financially discriminated against, when women had double glass ceilings to negotiate, interest rates were at 17 % , government debt was building to $96b, back before the internet was providing the information and opportunities to all today ! Oh ! for those great ole fair days in the 90's ! When things were so much more equal & fairer than before that evil Abbott fella came along !

jimbob:

11 Jun 2014 4:59:16pm

"absurd paranoia" is about right Realist. In the last 70 years, Labor have governed for about 20 years and each time (3 times in total), the nation has gone into debt, had high or increasing unemployment and "fairness" and "equality" went out the window....duh

And I am old enough to have lived through each one of those episodes of "national mental illness". I even remember one wind bag Labor prime minister saying that poverty would be completely eliminated under his "rule".

Even with the balance of 50 years of government by what you would think was the "evil empire" reading the paranoid comments on these pages, we still managed to increase our standard of living to what is arguably, the highest in the world....but of course that is hardly the issue is it. It really is only about jealousy.

Whenever Labor have held government, there has never been a wholesale transfer of wealth from the rich to the poor. There has only ever been a transfer of "capital" from the private to the public sector. This usually means bloated public service "enterprises" where those who fed off the public purse did quite well (thank you very much).

Our society remains as "unequal" and "unfair" today as it was when we came down from the trees and the first bully exercised his special talent.

I hate to say it but given how nature disposes genetics, opportunity, location, chance and random life events, "equality" and "fairness" will be a great dream. But like Sisyphus's rock....just when you think you've made it....

Gary:

Menzies handed down 17 consecutive budget deficits. The Liberal governments in the 70s also handed down deficits. It wasn't until the 80s under Labor that we had our first surplus.

Howard managed a surplus by introducing a great big new tax (GST), flogging off heaps of assets, and inheriting a strong economy from Labor.

Labor then saved us from the GFC. If the simple-minded bean-counters in the LNP were in charge they would have cut government spending at a time when the economy was weakest and plunged us into recession.

Treetop:

11 Jun 2014 9:47:09pm

When Howard was treasurer before he was prime minister , his first budget was one of the worse budgets in Australian political historyMr Howard was lucky when he returned as a prime minister because Mr Keating had already put the Australian economy in the right direction with very modern up- to- date economical policies that are still in legislation and Australians are still getting the advantages from the Keating era .

Forrest Gardener:

Algernon:

11 Jun 2014 6:20:42pm

Oh Jimbob seriously. If we go back to say 1972 then Labor and the Coalition have governed roughly for an equal amount of time.

I'd like to see the LNP manage another recession. In 1983 we had Howard give us the worst recession since the depression. He had no idea, gave us a credit crisis, real interest rates above 20% and closer to 30% for business becasue the banks couldn't lend to you at the official interest rates, not to mention sky-rocketing unemployment.

jimbob:

11 Jun 2014 11:11:52pm

Algernon, if we went back to Federation, Labor have governed around 44 years out of 113 (and even less of you consider Billy Hughes was also a Nationals PM for at least part of his tenure). And if you go back 1 year, you'll find that Labor governed 2 months out of the last 12. So what exactly is your point?

My point is that in our long history, it has not been all "bad" under non Labor governments, just like it has not been all "good" under Labor governments. I realise this is an ABC webpage with a particular bias but I'll stand by what I've said - there has never been a Labor government that has transferred and real quantum of wealth from the rich to the poor and probably never will be. "Fairness" and "equality" are intellectual constructs that do not reflect the reality of nature or the capacity for very deep depravity in the human heart - there will always be some animals that are more equal than others

kenj:

11 Jun 2014 6:56:30pm

What we hold in common is greater than what divides us. That is the underlying and most valuable truth. All political programs should be measured against that test. What truly offends about the current crop of Right wing rabble is that they are committed to the destruction of what we as citizens pledge to each other as a mark of our mutual respect and trust in each other: Medicare, good schools for all, environmental standards, public programs and public assets. The modern day equivalent of the hordes from Genghis Khan ride in sacking and pillaging everything they can -- and they then proceed to lecture us on their virtue! There is nothing to respect in this exercise in dishonesty, this denial of key elements of the social contract as accepted by most Australians, nothing at all.

geggyg:

11 Jun 2014 5:20:12pm

1955 is only 69 years ago , there are a lot a people still alive and mentally active and using computers who were born in the 1940's or earlier .Egg didn't say he would be personally affected by the pension changes ( but if Egg is on a pension his pension will be affected by changes to indexation )You obviously believe the Liberal line that the only people who are complaining are those who will be affected by the changes.I am 56yo on a disability pension and have some savings ( left over money after buying my house from my super disability insurance ) and can afford to pay the Medicare co payment and the increase in the PBS ( more than 3 time the rate of inflation ) and some of the other costs . concerned cornered for people who don't have a similar cushion to protect themselves

Realist:

11 Jun 2014 6:29:13pm

"I am 56yo on a disability pension and have some savings ( left over money after buying my house from my super disability insurance )"

Then you should be very, very appreciative of the country you live in and the generosity of its taxpayers! The vast majority of the world's 6 billion population have none of those things, none at all. And yet you want more at someone else's expense?

Now if Egg has any adult memory of Churchill whatsoever he would have to be have been say twenty in 1955. That would make him 79 today. He already has the pension and the changes to eligibility don't cut in until 2035!!!!!!!!

If he is still around in 1935 he will be 100 years old but still will not be impacted. Get the point? The people who will be impacted are still young and have plenty of time to plan and save. There are many changes that life will throw up that will impact them much more than whether they are 67 or 70 when they get the pension.

And if 70 is so devastating why wasn't Labor's increase to 67 despicable as well?

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 7:15:00am

"Now if Egg has any adult memory of Churchill whatsoever he would have to be have been say twenty in 1955. That would make him 79 today. He already has the pension and the changes to eligibility don't cut in until 2035!!!!!!!!"

I commented earlier that people like 'realist' appear incapable of understanding any having concern that isn't based on perosnal self-interest.

Thanks for confirming it.

In psychology seeing the world in only those terms is considered a pathology.

Treetop:

11 Jun 2014 9:54:22pm

Over time , the planned changes to the indexation of pensions will make a huge difference to the rate of the pension.Many pensioners who don't own their own homes are struggling just to pay for their rent now and in the future they may not be able to afford housing rentals . I don't see politicians wanting to use the same indexation rate to their own salaries .Tony Abbott is one of the world's most highly paid leaders , he receives a huge amount more that the president of the USA .

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 7:11:47am

I think the dwellers in fantasy land - like 'realist' and the rest - keep harping on about people only being concerned for their 'entitlements' (btw didn't we used to have 'rights' to some of these things? When did that terminlogy change?), is because that's how they approach politics and the world around them in general. They really can't grasp that there are people with larger social concerns. The entire concept of a 'common good' is beyond their horizon.

It's like that phrase 'the politics of envy'. Only right wingers feel it. And then project it on to everyone else. I've known many on the extreme looney left and extreme looney right over the years and some of the hardline on the left are crazy (to me) but I've never come across any where envy was a driving force. Anger at social injustice is the most common. Whereas I've met many sad souls who genuinely believe they are 'self-made men' (so no social structural understanding there at all) who are obsessed with keeping up with the Jones.

There's been some research in recent years into whether having left or right wing views is hard-wired into the brain. It's all pretty tentative but the emerging suggestion is that people who lean to the right are slightly more frightened of everything than others and less swayed by logic or reason.

Andrew Thomas:

11 Jun 2014 8:14:05pm

Realist,

I was waiting for someone to mention the OECD praise. I seem to recall that another Treasurer from a recently departed government got similar international praise.

Look, the reality is that we haven't had a good government for at least two decades. Until I see proper long term policy that develops our Country beyond a hole in the ground, I will withhold my praise irrespective of the Party concerned. Do us a favour and try and leave your bias behind and think about what is trully best for your country.

And before you go on about deficits and surpluses, don't bother. Rather, if you want to convince me, educate me on what policies are currently in place that are focused on R&D, developing new industry and are clearly pointed towards freeing us from digging up dirt and selling it oversease. Because one day, that gravey train will stop completely, and then what?

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 7:25:41am

"And before you go on about deficits and surpluses..."

Agreed. Shouldn't govt be about providing services and a decent community for people to live in? And then working out what that costs to provide and an economic formula for achieving it? In other words the economy is merely a tool to serve the people. What else is it? It's not an objective part of reality, it's a tool made by people, to serve people. When people start suffering to serve the economy, any contact with reality has been lost and ideology has won.

And we have a govt that worships the tool (hence their choice in leader - he's one), and cuts and destroys the services its there for (what else is it there for?). When people talk about the cost of democracy, they've lost the plot as democratic values are a benefit - not a cost.

Fred:

11 Jun 2014 8:37:21pm

Create "class war" ?It already exists but its too politically incorrect to talk about it , because we live in a "classless" society LOLBy the way the OECD reports are produced by the respective national governments , so of course the budget is praised

Arch File:

11 Jun 2014 9:30:12pm

OECD praised the budget? When? Where? Throw in a lie and hope the voices of reason them scramble around trying to disprove it. More bs from the right: confuse, confound and muddy the waters. JH is really out there in cloud cuckoo land if he actually believes what he is saying. But I suspect he isn't, it is class war and truth is the first casualty, as it has been from the day when TA took over the Libs.

hugh mungus:

11 Jun 2014 10:50:36pm

You mean Angel Gurria from the OECD endorsed the budget. He is also on the record as:1) suggesting that a ?big fat carbon tax? is needed to deal with global warming. 2) praising Australia?s economy as an ?iron man? in 2012, when Abbott/Hockey were still screaming about how bad it was 3) suggesting that surpluses should be ?set aside for a rainy day? (instead of spending them like Howard and Costello did).

Gurria is a firm believer in anthropogenic climate change and acting to address it; Google ?The climate challenge: Achieving zero emissions? and read his Oct 2013 lecture on it. He is also a strong believer in social equity and critic of the growing gap between rich and poor - Google ?Tackling inequality? with his name and read what he has to say about that. I take it you endorse these opinions equally? ? Or do you only accept his views when you can use them to support your pathetic rusted on LNP position?

TrevorN:

11 Jun 2014 3:06:48pm

Most Australians are pretty easy going and will accept political movement to both the right or the left provided that any change is fair and reasonable. They do not accept radical change and will not tolerate being repeatedly lied to and taken for fools.

The reason why things are going pear shaped for the coalition government is because the budget outcome for the majority of citizens is manifestly unfair and bound to bring hardship for many already disadvantaged citizens. If Abbott continues to ignore popular sentiment he will find that the resistance will grow to the extent that his reputation will never recover.

Abbott and Hockey are so wrapt up in their own political ideology and infallibility that they are not reading the danger signs. The fact that many of their backbenchers are also questioning their tactics show that some of them must be accurately reading the vibes of their electorates and to that extent I would not be surprised to see a caucus revolt and moves afoot to remove Tony and Joe if they don't change their tune.

rusty cairns:

11 Jun 2014 7:04:05pm

GDay RealistDo you mean by fair, is the 1.5% pay rise that Australia post workers received last year or the 66% pay rise the CEO of Australia post received ?His huge $4.7 million a year salary in justified says the acting PM because to get the best you have to pay more.Which begs the question if his salary was increased to $10 million/year would the 900 jobs losses to cut costs not be needed ?Only $4.7million/year, how on earth does he feed his family every week ?Almost $100,000/week before tax, wouldn't be interesting to find out if he actual paid the 47% income tax rate ?

worrierqueen:

11 Jun 2014 3:21:15pm

Yes it is funny isn't it egg, politicians work 4 days a week, 6 hours a day for 20 weeks a year and tell us to work harder. If they spent one day as a nurse, another as a teacher and a third as a firey they might have a little more perspective, not to mention humanity.

Robin hood:

TGU:

11 Jun 2014 5:34:20pm

"Hey so where are all these jobs?" This seems to be the socialist mantra at the moment, the truth is that there are sufficient jobs available for those willing to do give anything a go, while it is also true that some of these jobs pay minimum wage at least it's preferable to being on newstart.

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 7:36:35am

TGU/'realist' (LOL) - our economic system depends on unemployment to survive. Full employment would push wages sky-high and lead to collapse. The aim is for around 5% unemployed at any given time (in the same way work for the dole provides in effect either a new lower minimum wage - thereby driving everyone's wage leverage down, or if the work is pointless, is simply slavery). So, from that point of view, they're not bludging, they're providing a necessary social and economic service. Perhaps you could swap with one of them - that way you could do your bit as well.

Realist should try going to a few pubs around the former car manufacturing plants in VIC and SA and tell the people there to get off their backsides and support themselves! As he claims to believe that's all it takes. Good luck with that. You might get to the door.

AE:

11 Jun 2014 6:59:32pm

There are many people unwilling to consoder moving to get jobs, this is part of the problem. No, the job must come to them, ideally a nice fellow will knock on the door one day and hand a letter of offer to you.

stalga:

11 Jun 2014 9:52:31pm

It's not that simple AE. A lot of us have been there and done that. Recolating a long way is costly even if you live in your car. Chasing work interstate is a young persons game and often not really worth it. It is far harder to get ahead at present on a basic wage that in not so distant times. We have experienced 20 years of uninterrupted economic growth and this is where we are, in a so-called financial crisis , I blame mediocre politics I haven't heard so much talk/crap of dole bludgers since I was a kid. If so many are unemployable, then the education system must shoulder a large portion of the blame and that also indicates mediocre government

Kerrie:

11 Jun 2014 6:06:49pm

Realist, do you mean people have the choice of finding a job in an overcrowded labour market where employers will $10k to employ the unemployed over 50's or choosing to borrow money to pay for "learning" or choosing to sponge off charitable people/institutions?

I know you think it's fair that unemployed young people are treated differently to other age groups, but other people call it discrimination.

You also probably think the government is being fair to unemployed young people by "encouraging" unemployed parents to actvely join the labour market and tighten up disability criteria to get them to join the job market and increase the pension age. Other people just think the government is trying to save money. It has nothing to do with fairness.

Finally you may believe that it is fair for the government to change the terms of the HECS contracts contracts of students who have studied hard and failed to find full-time and/or well paid jobs, but this is called "bad faith".

This is a despicable government without any sense f fairness at all.

For those who struggle with concepts of fairness, maybe think of societies that are usually deemed to be unfair. French society before the French Revolution. Victorian England.

AE:

11 Jun 2014 7:02:50pm

Re: single mothers: my mother was single for some years of my childhood, and worked the whole time. When I hear single mothers whingeing about how unfair it is that they're expected to work It really grates, because many women do already voluntarily, without government forcing them to. So many people just want TOB to do all the work and pay all the tax, for TOB to support the country, TOB to make sacrifices to his standard of living so that they can keep theirs.......TOB = That Other Bloke.

rufus t firefly:

"So this government is despicable for adjusting some social security items even though they still leave Australians with one of the most generous systems in the world?"

Great attitude you've got there. So, as long as Australia is last in the race to the bottom, we're doing all right are we?

There's vision for you.

As for dismissing comparisons to Victorian England, I'm sure there was someone there at the time - just like Realist today, writing to the Times and complaining about the social reform left wing ratbags (the ones ending child labor, providing education, electoral reform etc) and pointing out that compared to Calcutta the slums of London were paradise.

P.S. We wouldn't be running last due to all that welfare, education and health claptrap set up by those over-entitled socialists over the years would we? But don't forget, Abbott's very competitive. He'll try and get us there first.

Kerrie:

Realist, I didn't realise there were rules that we could only compare Australia with current situations of inequality. I only considered other "first world" economies throughout history.

So you think it would be fairer that the Australian poor were as poor as third world poor people and, presumeably, that the Australian rich were as rich third world rich? I think, but I'm not sure, that third world rich have to pay a lot more in private security and in nepotism and otherwise financially supporting friends and family.

I suppose the problem for me is that I think that if the Australian rich are so unhappy with their lifestyle and paying their tax they could reduce their taxable income by reducing their income or move overseas to a third world country. Moving overseas is not necessarily an option for poor people.

Fred:

11 Jun 2014 8:54:40pm

But the LNP under Howard created the elite bludger the "disability" pensioner class in order to "improve" the unemployment figures. Now there is "great" LNP economic management! They simply follow whatever line the lobbyist push for

rusty cairns:

12 Jun 2014 7:41:38am

GDay FredThe N.T. government made Voluntary Euthanasia legal so those with terminal illnesses could end their painful lives with dignity. The terminal ill whom wish too, could end their burden on the tax payers by no longer needing expensive drugs to try and ease their pain and endless visits to doctors or hospitals to be supplied those drugs which more often then not were no doubt part taxpayer financed, yet Howards government overruled the N.T.'s legislation.I believe any truly concerned governments for peoples well being and costs to health would introduce Voluntary Euthanasia laws and allow these suffering people to relieve the pain they experience and the distress their love ones endure.

It's hypocritical that this federal government believes "Debt" is so wrong, yet expects those under 30 years old without work should go into debt to pay for learning skills for non existing jobs, but no doubt it will "improve" the unemployment numbers whilst the unemployed learn by paying with money they don't have.

Gr8Ape:

Treetop:

11 Jun 2014 10:12:51pm

Even the very rich living in a modern society are supported by others in the society and the structures that a modern society provides .There is no such thing as a self made person in the modern world.For example , have no regulations or the people who provide the services which are related to regulations and their pieces of money might be worthless or their bank deposits could disappear very quickly without banking regulations or don't have any food regulations and they may get poisoned when buying their food or have no police and property laws and their home and assets would then be grabbed by others who want their protected assets .Some people living in a modern society get a huge range of benefits but they never want to give any thing back in return .Average workers on wages often pay more in taxes than the very rich who have skilled accountants who often help them with legal schemes so they pay little or no tax .

geggyg:

11 Jun 2014 5:29:28pm

So in your opinion Channels 7,9 and 10 are left wing , and so are the Murdoch and Fairfax media interest . Were these media outlets lefties when they attacked the Labor Govt and pushed the leadership instability. Was the ABC right wing then because it constantly covered the Batts " scandal" and the Labor leadership fights You obviously think the Fox line in the US that the Main Stream Media( MSM) is left wing even when they are owned by corporations like GE

Tom1:

Your comment indicate show desperate followers of the government are. The political position has completely reversed in less that a year.

Not long ago Labor supporters were complaining about the influence of News Corp (With a certain amount of good reason), and what impact it was having on the political scene.

Now the complaint by Liberal supporters is how you have forlornly enunciated, it is a left wing bias.

In actual fact it is not. News Corp as not changed its position, nor has Paul Murray, Chris Kenny, Alan Jones from Sky News, or any of the political commentators supporting the Government that still appear on the unbiased ABC.

If the voters have not rejected the budget, there must be a conspiracy with the polls too!

Treetop:

11 Jun 2014 10:18:25pm

If a election was held now on the current polling figures , the current government would get about 40 seats and the Labor Party would get about 107 seats .This current budget is toxic and Tony Abbott might still not wake-up to the fact even after the next election , when he is giving a speech after the defeat of his government on election night .

rusty cairns:

12 Jun 2014 8:01:38am

GDay RobertThe day after the treasurer read his budget in the house of reps The premiers of QLD, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania all said parts of it were wrong and unjust.Would you call these premiers left wing ?

Susan:

12 Jun 2014 8:40:39am

if the voters aren't rejecting the budget, how do you explain the fall in consumer confidence? The LNP has created a self-fulfilling crisis. There was no crisis to begin with, but with one poorly thought out budget they are putting this great country into recession. Enjoy your one term government Tony!

Me of wherever:

Denny:

11 Jun 2014 5:59:40pm

Maybe you have never seen a media so intent on destroying a government. Every article on Fairfax and 95% of articles here demonize Abbott. Its just absurd.

Gillard never copped the vitriol that is dished up to Abbott on a daily basis. The deceitful left want people to believe a News Ltd bias but whatever small bias the privately owned News Ltd might have had is nothing compared to the ingrained ar left views of the ABC.

To compare the very mild measures in this budget to the cuts Thatcher displays a lack of knowledge on what Thatcher did. To mock them defies history as they proved successful and England has gone backwards since Thatcher/Major governments.

Abbott is doing what is right for the country. we have an overly generous system. He wants it to be a generous system. We still take care of our unemployed, our sick, our elderly better than most countries but we need the generous system to be sustainable.

The overly generous system was unsustainable. Its really as simple as that. The left want to piddle on the door of achievement and if the want to do that then even a generous welfare system is unsustainable.

Sheoakbloke:

11 Jun 2014 6:56:54pm

Sounds a little (massive understatement) like Murdoch press before the last election Denny. You know what the absurd thing is? You truly think Abbott is doing the right thing pushing us into recession. Look at the figures Last quarter GDP growth for whole economy 1.1%. Joe was over the moon. Did you perhaps ( or read about it in you Rupert Press) notice however that of this 1.1% increased minerals exports ( a not to be repeated next quarter increase according to Joe) added 1.6%GDP increase. Now I'm not so sure Joe can't handle negative figures so as to have missed the implication. The rest of the economy shrank 0.5% for the quarter. So right sir

Fred:

11 Jun 2014 9:18:36pm

Why are reporting the facts demonizing Abbott. Does the media have to always follow the Murdoch propaganda machine? Heavens knows why this person is allowed to have so much power in a so called democracy is puzzling.Usually the medias in Australia tow the politically correct "Murdochian" line so you should be happy

Tom1:

11 Jun 2014 9:59:59pm

Denny: One has to assume that you are talking about the same political scene that we have become used to over the past several years. The same scene that saw rabid right wing commentators demonise Julia Gillard to the point that one said her recently deceased father died of shame. The same nutter who appears with "Richo" of Sky News, just as absurdly right wing and pro Abbott as ever.

Do not compare Abbott with Thatcher. She could have at least string a sensible sentence together, and was not an embarrassment to the country she led. Not immediately anyway.

Abbott has no idea of what is right for the country. He thinks he knows what is right for Abbott, and believes that he can convert the rest of the nation to his way of thinking, forgetting that we are a strongly secular society believing for in prosperity for ALL, and a concern for the environment.

He is not up to the task, and because a large portion of the population discovered that before the light has even looked like dawning on you does not reflect on them.

The budget you laud so much is unsustainably unfair, and this should be obvious even to the most biased of right wingers. In fact many of the back benches realise it, so why do not you.

GraemeF:

Chef widow:

11 Jun 2014 7:07:44pm

I think this is managing a class war. They don't value and even ignore the values we all grew up on. My husband is a chef and the way forward in kitchens is 14 hrs a day on your feet no breaks but write them in anyway and have no life with family. Ches are in one of the worst payed industries subject to terrible exploitation.

For such a flogging, you are lucky to get 50,000 and be criticized for sticking up for you rights, bullied or just ignored. The head chefs feel powerless and the food and production suffer. The customers blame the kitchens but the management slosh about on a sea of poor policy and wine leaving poor planning to the rescue of the kitchen.

This is the way forward. production unmanageable, staff exhausted and still they want more. Mr Hockey when you do 14 hrs 5 days a week in a kitchen and know there is no end in sight I will delight in your master demanding a further few pounds of flesh. Oh and no eating!

tomtoot:

archg:

11 Jun 2014 9:13:22pm

I agree, never have we had such bad goverment...Cardinal Pell has more say than the rest of us, this is Tony Abbots attempt to make Australia a CATHOLIC country,most of his cabinet are RC`s I`ll be dammed. we will end up like the Banana Republics of Europe, ie Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Sth America, I wont kiss any popes arse.Gillards problem was she gave the away the right for all schools to be equal, when she handed the Catholic Schools Billions of dollars.I see Pell has spent 40 million dollars in refurbishing his Vatican Apartment.....good one Julia, you save Abbot the trouble.

marg1:

11 Jun 2014 10:52:19pm

Spot on egg, totally agree with you and with this article. Poor old Joe just can't understand why the Australian people are so upset about this budget, he just doesn't get it. He has no understanding or notion of equality and fairness for all.

tc21:

12 Jun 2014 5:24:02am

But this is exactly what Conservative Governments do. They create a top heavy society, a dog eat dog mentality where the fortunate ones at the top thrive whilst those at the bottom perish. Abbott is a dangerous PM as he leads to serve his own outdated ideologies and his own ambition. The arrogance of this mob is unbelievable. Unless you're from the North Shore then this mob could not give a stuff about you and if you think they do, dream on.

Skeptic:

12 Jun 2014 9:26:39am

Hear, hear! "A fair go" is more than just a pithy 3-word slogan; it is part of our national DNA. You are completely correct about Hokey - been a professional windbag his whole life and never worked outside of the sheltered workshop of politics. I gather that the same goes for Pyne, Brandis and many, many others.

keith:

11 Jun 2014 2:24:51pm

Under this government it will be a matter of which end of the cash band you live on.if you are under 30 and out of work then things are are going to get as bad as they can get.if you have a low end job you are going to feel real pain from the heavy lifting you will be doing.if you earn a lot you will not feel much at all and all will be rosy and if you a own a mine your sitting sweet, politicians come out of it very well to as they only give up a pay rise and we all now you don't miss money you never had and when you get as much as them with all the routs as well you got it made...

taxedoff:

11 Jun 2014 4:33:14pm

come on dont ruin it for realist he lives in the eather world of the laberals and rent seekers. the shame is the ones who support the rich and well off end up being the hardest hit. the laberals love to mention aspiration but it cant apply to the lower paid their aspirations are wicked thougths of equity and fairness. in all ecconomies the rich live off the work of the lower paid but without these people doing the heavy lifting the rich would have no lifestyle.. who would mow the lawns , who would clean the house , fix the washing machine , mend the plumbing , fix the car etc etc . its all about balance which the natural world always has but the un-natural world of ecconomy has in balance based upon selfish ego and greed.

AE:

Sheoakbloke:

12 Jun 2014 8:09:26am

Market law of supply and demand. You may have trouble getting tradespeople as the gutted TAFE systems train a mere 16-17 thousand new tradespeople each year to replace the 60-70 thousand baby boomer tradespeople retirees exiting the job market.The solution is to train more but others see it as simple as 457

Tom1:

Realist: Foreign aid is being cut in the sense that it will be less that what would have incurred if the Government had not changed. The same goes for education, and many other issues in this budget.

You as with Hockey are playing with words, and most of the thinking public know this. I am not saying that had the position been reversed that Labor would not have done the same thing, but using such tactics does not substitute for reality.

paulinadelaide:

11 Jun 2014 7:10:08pm

If you cut spending in a budget it's seems likely it's the people recieving the "transfers" will be the losers. The actual losses are minor and reasonably targeted. Many have no immediate effect even if passed by the senate.Changing taxes is somewhat more complicated and I understand a tax review is underway or planned - they may even get more than the 3 out of 120 suggestions recommended by Henry.The lurks & perks you speak of are a little more difficult.Fbt on cars is to simplify the process. The ATO would have difficulties if removed.If you have a SMSF you have a trust. Suspect you mean family trusts. They have some advantages but changes over the last 20 odd years have removed most of the fun. I just don't know how they could actually get rid of them - there must be millions of them.Negative gearing - tried & failed.Health rebate - has been changed although matter of opinion.Super tax concessions. Everyone is governed by the same limits. Bigger the income - bigger the super. What concessions are there exactly that you want to eliminate. As I pay vast sums of super for my staff, and do all the admin work for super funds pro bono, I'd like to think I'm subject to some super benefits.Of course you could just add 10% to every marginal tax rate and it would appear make most of the writers on this site as happy as. Just so long as it was spent on them.Alternatively we could tax the banks at 100% - hey that's a great idea - has anyone thought of that.................

Tom1:

paul: You misjudge the contributors to the Drum if you think that they are all for free handouts, and not the economy.

The current government has brought down an unfair budget because it gained office on convincing the population that we were in dire straights, and they were the only ones that could fix it.

Governments of all persuasions use the same qualified officials from the treasury and reserve bank, they just interpret the information received to suit their own ideology.

Labor, even the most conservative will have to agree has left the country, after the GFC in a pretty good state compared to the rest of the world.

Politicians will argue who deserves the credit for this, but that is immaterial. The fact remains that even Labor although continually maligned, day in and day out by dutiful members of the government, would be just as aware of the problems ahead, and if in government would do something about it. In the latter years they were fiscally responsible, more so that the current government who want to introduce a PPL that no none can see will be other than a waste of money.

All this government had to do was to bring down a budget that seemed fair, and it would have been accepted. They could pave proceeded from that, and brought structural change with equal pain to everyone.

Hockey's arguments are an insult to the average intelligence. He tries to stir up confected outrage from those he thinks will believe him. For example the top 10% of taxpayers are donating 12% of their earnings to the welfare state. Somewhere in there is the con that if you hit the welfare state that 10% will receive an extra 12% income. It simply means that the government will get the extra cash and spend it elsewhere.

Conservatives conveniently forget that a large % of the structural deficit was incurred by Howard. Much to Costello's chagrin. The extra benevolence to the middle class is still a burden of the budget.

It is strange that Abbott and Hockey are railing about the age of entitlement imposed on the country by Howard, and the lack if infrastructure, also a legacy of Howard, yet they want to sheet home to so called dire state of the economy to labor.

Mr shark:

11 Jun 2014 6:32:00pm

Well I would have thought you spend most of your time commenting here and supporting a government who appears to be far more concerned for the welfare of those on the top then it has for those on the bottom.But if you are helping people who earn $15 a day then that's great , but which Australians actually earn that sum ? You are always asking others to provide data to support their arguments , please reciprocate ....A pensioner will be $4000 worse off in ten years if these lower increases go ahead . Yet the liba refued to support a measure that would have seen pensioners earning $ 100,000 a year interest on their super taxed at 15% still waving them with $85 grand . Is this equitable,or is this class warfare as prominwnt liberals put it at the time ? I think you have a strange set of priorities and a utterly inappropriate name .....

Nina:

11 Jun 2014 10:33:52pm

There is more at stake here... some people live in a family home that was worth nothing when they moved in, the value of the house may have increased 100 fold but the real income of the owner may still be relatively low. The cost of a real 'home' is priceless and to move may cause more health problems and stress than benefit. The owner may well be living on your $15 a day, and that is not to distract from the reality of those struggling on that amount without a home, but poverty is a complex animal, homless-ness is not only lack of money but can also stem from a lack of mental support and social capital. in many ways a home for a pensioner is often a type of social capital it is the place they are safe and familiar in. when every thing is only reduced to the monetary value the people you are caring for become even less and issue, or more so, a statistic rather than a real human with a singular value that has no monetary price, this is not impossible but a complex issue. I believe that a pensioner earned the right to their home , there is no compensation if they live in a place where land values have stagnated. These people prepared the nation for this generation and it is a poor offspring who now turn and grasp at the last years of their elders lives to pay for their own wild and reckless spending.

This has not even been addressed as part of the problem in this budget. labor is no more to blame than the 1000's who went on credit spending sprees in the fruitful times only to fall into stupid unsecured debt when their money ran out. Poor things they spent their $1000 windfall from labor on a new flat screen rather than reining in the debt they created thought their own behavior. Or you can reflect on the housing boom which is now biting the very $15 a day people you are helping, who initiated that boom when the possibility of housing and a singular commodity overrode the original possibility of a human right, Who was responsible for that? Liberal. People who bought did it to make sacrifice and save, to go without in the harder times so when they got old they could survive...hmmm who would have thought that their careful planning would reward them with such inhumanity! The blame here and accountability is falling to the Liberal party. Good money going overseas, where did all that wonderful GST go in the first year? into a super fund for the aging who would need in now? I think not!

Desert Woman:

11 Jun 2014 2:44:34pm

Spot on Aussie. That is the real question and it is obvious that Australians have in their mind exactly the sort of society they want to live in. Perhaps we should spell it out for the pollies rather than leave them to get round to telling us.

prison:

11 Jun 2014 3:17:14pm

I bet that if the majority of us sat around together and discussed what we want for australia's future there would be a lot of common goals. Much of it would be what Labor was pushing for before being crucified by conservative run media.

What we need is a truly new, grassroots political party which is progressive minded, with a goal of prosperity while also catering for the weakest members of society. It needs to be free from the influence of unions and corruption from industry. It wouldn't be 'left' or 'right' or 'socialist' or 'conservative' as all of those labels are irrelevant today - we need to move on and argue what we want an issue at a time without the constraints of political party control or propaganda.

Unfortunatly, the progressive party in the US from 1913 suffered from lack of funding but if you research their goals, I think we are at a similar point where change is required.

I've got no faith in any political party in Australia being able to adapt to give us what we want.

Losimpson:

11 Jun 2014 3:49:01pm

You're right, prison. It has long been my belief that most people share pretty much the same view of what should be done with only minor disagreements around the edges. What we did not see coming was a government so rooted in the past that they thought their route to success was to try to re-ignite long gone prejudices and class warfare based on discredited economic theories. You would think that a look at what Thatcher did to England would have cured them.

Desert Woman:

11 Jun 2014 3:58:32pm

You've got it exactly Prison. If people met in all their cities and towns small or even smaller, and discussed the most desirable future of Oz, you would find a huge commonalities. Perhaps we do need a new grassroots party, organized from the people by the people. We would, however, have to have a participative form of democratic organization for it, not a top down one, as they always degenerate into power plays where ultimately, the top layers walk away with the organization and the rest lose interest.

favela fella:

taxedoff:

11 Jun 2014 4:37:04pm

spot on however i would say that shallow % who are selfish are fed mis turths by the right whinge about the evils of lefty agendas that support equity against all those nice hard working self made minority. the selfish dont want and dont believe in nations or society or community they want only their selfish dna to prosper, abbott has no belief in nation only in himself , likewise for hockey no sense of communtiy just the world of hokienism...

Peter the Lawyer:

11 Jun 2014 5:15:12pm

Let me get this right. It was the media that won the last election for the Coalition, yet that same media now is doing the same thing it did before the election and the voters are saying they don't like it.

Doesn't that mean that the media in fact did not win the election for the Coalition at all, and that the people made up their own minds?

gray:

11 Jun 2014 2:54:24pm

whats the point, the pollies will only promise the world until after the election, they will say anything to gain power, what we need is a law that makes them keep there promises, and jail or loss of power for breaking election promises, after all it is fraud isnt it if you tell lies, make them sign a contract on there promises

I think I think:

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:05:13am

"Better still we need a law that limits the amount of tax they can raise and the amount they can spend.

Government needs to shrink."

Why?

Why does govt need to shrink Peter the pretend lawyer? Surely in a democracy govt represents (theoretically) the entire populace. Whereas every other entity represents self-interested and/or partisan minorities. Surely govt in that setting should always be the biggest kid in the sandbox. Any other outcome would be corrupt.

I can agree that other forms of govt - ones that aren't representative - may be too big and or corrupt (monarchies, dictatorships in general being obvious examples) but that isn't the case with democracy. In democracy the key to good govt is ensuring the govt is actually democratic and representative. Which ain't the case at present as they only represent the (short-term and old economy) interests of one end of town.

But that just means the people in the system are broken, not that the system itself is a problem. We just need to ensure it works as intended.

Realist:

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:07:48am

Realist keeps forgetting that the OECD praised the Rudd govts management of the GFC to the skies. Whereas the comment he's basing his OECD mantra from simply looked that the general idea of returning to surplus and said, in effect, 'sounds good to me.'

Realist:

I think I think:

taxedoff:

11 Jun 2014 4:39:03pm

yes the last 6 years with a rabbid opposition and chidlish pranks from pyne,, yes no one wants a return to that well said. we all want to see good legislation passed not the trashing of good laws that brought equity.

Noah's Ark:

We don't want a repeat of the last 6 years. The last 6 years are gone. But what we do want is to get rid of the Mean and Nasty current Abbott LNP government.

Abbott has inflicted enough pain already and he hasn't got a snowballs chance in hell of getting the Hockey budget passed.Bring on a DD . That's what we want Realist.

In just 6 months Abbott has revealed that he is exceptionally more destructive and divisive and wanting to turn Australia intoan ideological Neo Conservative economic waste landthan the preceding 6 years of Labor.

The Tide has turned very quickly and by the very indictments of Lying by Gillard that Abbott hung on the Gillard/Rudd ALP government has come back to bite him. Real Hard. The die is cast . The Abbott LNP is a one termer. They are finished . Abbott will not get back in the Polls . Be Assured.

Bring on a DD Hockey and Abbott or otherwise stop trying to coerce and threaten the senate and the electorate. You both know it is going to work against you lot anyway.

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:20:09am

Noah's Ark - there won't be a DD. They wouldn't stand a chance. My information is that private polling has been even worse than the official polls. And in any tough fight Abbott has a consistent track record of running away (it's what keeps him fit). We saw it many times when he was Health Minister. Even now, he's always missing in action on anyting important, so someone else has to front up for him (he was clearly the kid in school that shouted out names - but only from the other side of the playground).

There will be a change of leader before the next election. Abbott was never popular within his own party - let alone the electorate (and unlike Howard, he was never respected either), his role was simply to win the election - he clearly can't run a govt. When we see Hockey start talking a little more reasonably (moving hiumself back to the middle-ground) and Julie Bishop begins her regular dance of overt total loyalty followed immediately by backstabbing (she must be Hockey's mentor), get ready for the spill. Those two are survivors who believe in nothing except themselves. And as a result, are useful barometers of what's happending backstage.

Probably the only thing holding a change back is working out who the next one would be. The obvious choice with the electorate probably has no chance inside the party. His problem being he's a Liberal. And its a neocon party now.

DCO:

11 Jun 2014 3:23:40pm

Ausie Roadster,

You have touched on a real issue concerning our current form of 'democracy'. While we average punters get a look in every three years or so, and have to decide which pack of lies to accept, the real setters of the agenda - the corporate lobbyists, the rich and powerful - constantly have access to influential politicians and so can get the whole policy debate framed in their own terms.

What mechanism is there for ordinary Australians to make our politicians deal with a specific issue? If we decided for instance that we collectively wanted a national transport infrastructure project, how would we get our politicians' attention?

There is no debate on the best level of population for Australia (or the world).There is no debate on what level of foreign 'investment' (ownership) is suitable, and what its real effects might be.There is no debate about so-called free trade, and its effects on less wealthy Australians.There is no clearly-expressed vision of where we're supposed to be going as a nation - our national identity is disappearing as successive governments tie us more deeply into becoming another American state, while eroding our own sense of nationhood by starving our film and other arts organizations so that we only see American perspectives.

The issue of the degree of equality we feel most comfortable with is at the centre of many things, including economics, infrastructure planning, health care, education and so on.

George Spiggot:

11 Jun 2014 4:07:00pm

Good call.The issues you listed should be debated in Parliament but instead the pollies are too busy trying to win the popularity contest (a flaw in democracy).The media has a role as well but unfortunately they are just mouthpieces for the power groups.Democracy has indeed been hijacked and theres not much we can do.

Desert Woman:

11 Jun 2014 4:30:15pm

George, there are always things we can do. We can start campaigning for a better form of democracy that has a much lower potential for corruption and the capture of a govt by the wealthy. Prison (above) has suggested we start a new people's party. And of course, the Senate might deny supply. We are not down and out yet by a long way.

tomtoot:

11 Jun 2014 9:20:03pm

@Desert Woman:- your usual positive response to a negative social issue is a virtue, keep up the good work. - George Spiggot has raised an issue on issues which we all want answers? why didn't I think of that?WHY NOT Start a NEW PEOPLE'S PARTY- call upon everyone to change things - I'm in! - I'm in all the way - I believe it could work - resurrection of democracy could be just what we need.Everyone everywhere with an equal voice?

the egg:

whohasthefish:

11 Jun 2014 5:48:40pm

Its about time the blow torch was placed fairly and squarely on Murdoch. IMHO he is not a fit person to run a business let alone having total control of the strings of that idiotic puppet Abbott whom masquerades as a Prime Minister.

Murdoch needs to be removed from the equation as he is the single greatest threat to our decency and democracy. Our pollies have totally ignored the Levinson inquiry in England at their own peril. It is an indictment of both major parties that they have not the ticker to take on a parasite like Murdoch. Its an indictment on the LNP that it is Murdoch's agenda they blindly follow and not the wishes of those that elected them to office. Its an indictment on the common sense of Australians that we put up with this crap.

TGU:

Alpo:

11 Jun 2014 7:00:08pm

TGU, Gillard having lunch with Murdoch is just a product of your wild imagination. But it's true that Rudd did meet Murdoch before the 2007 election.... that was probably the last time they talked to each other. The chances that Shorten will meet with Murdoch at any time are pretty much zero.... Murdoch's power is going down, down, he is just a pro-Liberal Media Mogul now, and the Liberals are going down, down with him...

v:

11 Jun 2014 7:40:47pm

TGU,

Both Rudd and Gillard did meet with Murdoch. The difference, of course, is that Abbott has never been to the US without meeting with Murdoch, and this was also the case for John Howard. But even more interesting than the fact that Abbott has picked up fresh riding instructions from his boss, is who Abbott chose NOT to meet when he had the opportunity. The fact that he placed a meeting with Rupert Murdoch above possible meetings with the heads of the IMF and World Bank speaks volumes for Abbott's priorities.

To understand what is going on, you have to go all the way back to the vicious battle for control of the Liberal Party between Andrew Peacock and John Howard. Peacock was more popular with the people and a far more accomplished politician, and he had the ascendancy over Howard until Howard threw in his lot with the US Republican Party and its major sponsor and puppet-master Rupert Murdoch. Howard's rise began from that point, but it came at the cost of the independence of the Liberal Party which, also from that moment, became a mere branch office of Murdoch's growing political cartel.

Australian politics is none of Murdoch's business. He gave up the right to have a say when he swore allegiance to a foreign power. It is galling that someone who turned his back on Australia should have more say in who governs Australia and what policies they pursue than any loyal Australian citizen. What is the point of turning up every April 25 to honour those who have fought for the independence and freedom that we have so readily surrendered?

Alphamikefoxtrot:

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:24:23am

"Yes, and maybe it was at those lunches that Murdoch realised what absolute dunder-heads Rudd and Gillard were"

Surely Murdoch would want dunder-heads? The more malleable the better. I'd have thought the purpose of such lunches would be for Murdoch to assess his potential level of control over various political puppets, and anyone he deemed not tractable enough, would be put on his editorial hit list.

v:

12 Jun 2014 10:27:17am

Alpha,

"Yes, and maybe it was at those lunches that Murdoch realised what absolute dunder-heads Rudd and Gillard were."

Regardless of whether Rudd or Gillard are dunderheads or not, Australian politics is NONE OF RUPERT's BUSINESS. Murdoch gave up his right to be involved in Australian politics when he swore allegiance to a foreign power and turned his back on the country of his birth. His constant interference in Australian politics should be viewed in exactly the same light as an attempt to interfere in our domestic politics by a foreign government. It represents a direct attack on our sovereignty, and it is a measure of Abbott's hypocrisy that he can be carrying on about the need to protect our sovereignty from dispossessed and desperate refugees at the same time as he is doing the bidding of a foreign master.

Rudd and Gillard met with Rupert, but did not dance to his tune. A quick look at the major policies of the Tories reveals a surprising level of alignment with the business agenda of Murdoch's companies in Australia. It is pretty obvious who pulls the strings in the Liberal Party.

kp:

11 Jun 2014 4:49:09pm

The TPP negotiations are a prime example of where industry and lobbyists are included, but the general public is being excluded. Industry groups and lobbyists have been invited to participate in reviews, but consumer advocacy groups have been excluded.

Noah's Ark:

11 Jun 2014 5:17:03pm

DCO

What you have stated sums up very neatly what Rupert Murdoch is endeavouring and is unfortunately in some perspectives succeeding in turning Australia into. Murdoch only cares for his personal objectives and they are completely out of sinc in what is in Australia's best interests.

The Eggman:

11 Jun 2014 5:34:36pm

The issue that ties all your points together is that neoliberalism has and is eroding our national identity, way of life, and wellbeing.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that both the Libs and Labs are neoliberal parties, so all we get is a choice between bad cop and worse cop. This has been the case for some thirty odd years now and it has reached the point where our government is basically owned by the uber-rich and their propagandists.

So I don't know how talking about the issues you raise will help. Not when the ideological bent that forms the very scaffolding on which government makes decisions and develops policy serves to prevent meaningful action to address them and not when the government real master isn't the Australian people.

Rather than rely on the good graces of our current cannibalistic government to provide solutions (which they cannot provide anyway for the reasons outlined above) it's time we discussed implementing a whole new system instead.

Our system is outmoded anyway and has demonstrated that it is unable to provide solutions for the big issues, like climate change, mass extinctions, etc. that we are facing this millennium.

Nina:

Charles:

11 Jun 2014 3:59:33pm

Well I think Aussie Roadster they have put forward some compelling arguments as to what we will look like if we continue down this pathway to a mendicant state. The fact that you and the majority of the Left don't appear to get it is unfortunate but not particularly unsurprising.

v:

11 Jun 2014 8:02:55pm

Charles,

"Well I think Aussie Roadster they have put forward some compelling arguments as to what we will look like if we continue down this pathway to a mendicant state."

Last September, our federal government debt was a little under $200 billion, and was forecast to peak at a little over $300 billion. Since the election of the Abbott government, Treasury has revised its forecasts, using the same economic assumptions, but substituting the pro-cyclical fiscal settings introduced by Mr Hockey for the counter-cyclical settings of the previous government. The result was a near-doubling of the projected peak debt from just over $300 billion to well over $600 billion.

It's not hard to figure out why the forecasts have deteriorated so alarmingly in the space of a few months. The counter-cyclical settings of the previous government had the effect of bolstering domestic demand, and this compensated somewhat from the collapse in demand from international markets. As a result, domestic economic activity remained relatively healthy, and this ensured that a steady stream of revenue continued to flow into government coffers. Mr Hockey's adoption of pro-cyclical fiscal settings has effectively removed this essential support for the domestic market while the international economy is still weak and, as a result, Treasury has shaved a full percentage point off projected GDP growth and, as a result, sharply downgraded its forecasts for future public revenues. Not only does this mean that our debt will grow much larger than it needed to, but it will take much longer for the budget to return to surplus.

If your trousers are on fire, it is wise to take a counter-combustion approach (use water), and not a pro-combustion approach (use kerosene). Hockey is dousing his trousers in kerosene, and we will all get burnt as a result.

The Eggman:

12 Jun 2014 1:13:08pm

I think you have misread/misunderstood Aussie Roadster's post Charles.

It seems to me that Aussie Roadster suggested that our politicians should basically outline their goals/aspirations for the future, but that he/she didn't actually make an argument or case about what those goals/aspirations should be - at least not here. Bearing this in mind, your response seems unwarranted, tribal, and out of place.

The whole left vs. right thing is so last millennium and outmoded anyway, especially considering that neoliberal politicians from both the 'left' and 'right' have been busy for decades converting Australia into the mendicant state that you yourself are keen to avoid.

Like Nina said above, it's time to discuss, debate and remodel.

In the spirit of things I'm happy to have a crack first, but I maintain that it's time that the entire system is put on the table for discussion - after all, it's only one of a number of models for organizing the human project we are all part of.

And I'm not just talking about revisiting the old distributional questions about who gets what share of the spoils that characterized, and continues to characterize, the debate about politics/economics, but rethinking and reinventing the whole human project from the ground up.

So for mine, the purpose of civilization should be to provide its citizens with access to essentials like food, water, shelter, security, health, liberty, the company of fellows, time to develop, think and come to terms with problems, and it should be able to do so in such a way that it can continue to operate in something close to a perpetuity - barring some kind of unforeseeable cataclysm like an asteroid or whatever - thereby providing future generations with access to the same.

It should also provide its citizenry with a cogent and meaningful expression of the system's purpose, which is in this case, is provide a system that encourages everyone to live as well as possible, for as long as possible, for as many generations as possible because life has qualities that are worth maintaining and exploring.

In a nutshell, I would like to see us adopt some kind of new steady state economic/political model.

By way of contrast, this is not the direction our current civilization is headed. Instead, it's swan dived off an ecological cliff towards oblivion - and the ride down isn't even enjoyable enough for most of us to warrant the price we will pay when we hit bottom. And the purpose of our civilization, as near as I can determine, is to take every single precious and living thing and make it dead for the short term gain of a tiny minority of elites.

So your turn, what is it that you want the human project to accomplish?

Trump:

11 Jun 2014 2:28:33pm

There's a lot of pessimism around these days and the media is largely to blame, from tortured cattle in Indonesia to negative slants on everything. Corruption at almost every level, the people cant even turn to the church any more..The public are subjected to negativity and horror stories daily so even though they're pretty well off they feel quite the opposite

Sydney:

11 Jun 2014 4:50:51pm

You are dead right, Trump ? the media has been responsible for negativity for a few years: They pushed a good government, a government with a lot of foresight, out. I cannot remember that insight of yours in your contributions up to the end of last year, and I suggest to you not to whinge about it now, either.This time, even News Ltd. are at a loss: They seem to regret more and more the terrible mistake they made. How could anyone ever vote for this hopeless lot, anyway?? You do not have to read the papers to see that point!

Aaron:

11 Jun 2014 5:43:42pm

the media pushed a good government, a government with a lot of foresight, out...... Yeah right.

The previous government wasn't pushed at all, in fact I think most, would agree that they pretty well brought on their own demise with empty thought bubbles, failed schemes, (let's hear you name some successes), ballooning debt and factional blood letting.

Hopefully next time they'll exhibit a degree of hindsight - I wouldn't hold your breath though.

As for this lot - well I'm going to wait and see, rather than whinge and pretend that the previous lot deserved to still be in power.

Noah's Ark:

11 Jun 2014 7:05:43pm

Petere the lawyer

The fact that our kids are getting fatter is well documented. We are the 4th fatest nation pro rata behind the USA, Mexico and Kiwi Land. The truth is that this generation of kids is going to live less not longer than their parents. Diabeties, heart disease and cancer just for a start.The lie that one in three will live beyond 100 years of age is just that . It is propaganda conveniently used by Hockey to justify raising the pension age. I'd Like to know who/whom and who/whom on behalf of done the research to come up with that number before I subscribe to it.

Our society's future generations in the West are not going to live longer due first and foremost to the Obesity Epidemic. , Do some proper research and Stop defending the fast food industry, the Grocery Council of Australia and Hockey's propaganda machinations.

WE the Consumers want easily identifiable food nutrient 5 star rating system on our Grocery itemswhich this government through the Abbott's LNP Fiona Nash dumped the system before it got up as it was ready to go. Just another piece of wrecking Australian's Health by standing up for Corporations by the Abbott LNP government.

Without sensible regulation the health outcomes in Australia will only deteriorate. We need more sensiblegovernment services.

Desert Woman:

11 Jun 2014 7:06:45pm

Gees Peter, I've read some pretty silly comments on the Drum before but I think yours is up there in the top ten. The obese don't make it to the average age, they die before that. Imagine what the life expectancy figures would be like if we didn't have an obesity epidemic.

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:31:22am

Peter the pretend lawyer - if I've got this right you say that obesity possibly makes us live longer (apparently causation and association are one and same in your world - although I should point out that the health experts (but what would they know - they're not pretend lawyers) are saying that this generation WON'T live as long as their parents; you must have missed that).

From that pronouncement you then conclude that the size of govt needs to be reduced.

I've said it before and I'll say it again - with reasoning like that, I'm glad you're not my lawyer.

Smoranean:

"Around the globe, people have lost faith in their economies as a vehicle of prosperity and see them more and more as battlegrounds between their interests and those of the rich and powerful. "

Close. This world (and can only write about Australia and Thailand from first-hand experience), is a battleground between human beings and the hubris of academia. We all know it's a farce, and that is what this war is about.

pw1:

11 Jun 2014 2:39:35pm

I wonder if someone can dig up any similar surveys form the past that indicate the same result. To some extent a "we'll all be rooned" attitude has prevailed in the community for a long time, well certainly since Said Hanrahan 100 years ago. Pessimism is part of human nature.

But fairness, whilst a good thing in theory, is something about which we need to be more honest about the consequences, and careful how we apply our notion of fairness. For example our taxation system is generally considered to be one of the more complicated because we want to have rebates or deductions to make it "fair". But it seems that often those who benefit the most don't really need the benefit making things in fact less "fair". Extraordinary licences - oh its not fair that the driver who was caught DUI cant do his job, so we'll give the licence back to make it fair - some deterrent that is and how fair is it to the innocent person that is hurt or killed next time the driver is DUI?

Does our concept of fair create a an unreal world were people don't face the full consequences of their actions or feel the real discomfort that might be spur to get up and try a bit harder? Sometimes it might be "fairer" to everyone if we were a little less fair.

taxedoff:

11 Jun 2014 4:43:03pm

so if we raise the taxes for the well off and kill of the super payments that help the well off and get rid of negative gearing and reduce the rent seekers they would all shout its not fair!!! and yet as you say we dont need to be fair we just say to these people work harder its ok you can put up with it.and yet in a court of law and many of our laws are framed upon the concept of fairness.....

pw1:

11 Jun 2014 5:23:08pm

Well that why I put "fair" in inverted commas. How do we judge what really is fair for others? And when is it really fair and when is no different to kids whining in the play ground about something that was really their own fault.

Someone on $500,000 pays $200,00 tax (40%). Someone on $50,000 pays $8,000 tax (16%). Is that fair? (maybe?) - I know they $500,000 person may have ways to minimise tax, and the person on $50,000 probably gets a number of government benefits to reduce their tax too - proportionally probably more than the higher paid person.

Peter the Lawyer:

11 Jun 2014 5:25:57pm

Maybe if we cut tax rates for everyone and became a more self-reliant and less whiny bunch of deadbeats, we would be alot happier.

The size of government needs to be drastically reduced. On;ly in this way can we ensure that the services that governments must deliver (mostly at the State level) are delivered well. Tne tax system is there to ensure that government has money to deliver services, not to reduce income or wealth inequality.As we have seen with the Picketty controversy, lefties have to lie to uphold their silly arguments about the delterious effects of inequality.

Fairness is so often used by te left in the sense that a child who doesn't get what he or she wants uses the concept.

donkeyvoter:

11 Jun 2014 7:07:01pm

Australia ranks as a 'small government' country. It's just a fact, try and dispute it. I don't understand what you're talking about. If you are attempting to lump together all the critics of this government as whining lefties I think you are grossly underestimating the groundswell of negativity towards Abbott & Co. from people of all political persuasions.

I can see that you value the self-reliant business types above all others, while to me most of them make their fortune through morally bankrupt practices, in fact many are to be despised. When, for example, the head honcho of Australia Post receives $4.5 million per annum then that to me is unfair if not obscene. If a government extracted more tax from that person with a side-effect being to restore some small vestige of equality with people who work bloody hard forty plus hours a week and forty-eight plus weeks a year then I think that should be applauded.

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:41:18am

I take it by "the Picketty controversy" you mean the articles highlighting a small number of research errors (none significant) and a single op-ed piece in The Economist (not exactly an impartial source on this matter) claiming the data could be interpreted differently. Not really a controversy is it?

That's a bit like claiming there's a climate change 'debate' simply because the ignorant (Jones, Bolt, Plimer, Abbott, etc) have a different view from the informed (akin to a maths class with the problem '2+2=' and some children answer 5 so the teacher concludes we don't know the answer as the maths isn't settled yet).

Dazza:

11 Jun 2014 5:55:05pm

"Extraordinary licences - oh its not fair that the driver who was caught DUI cant do his job, so we'll give the licence back to make it fair - some deterrent that is and how fair is it to the innocent person that is hurt or killed next time the driver is DUI?"

So, where would George Brandis stand if Peta Credlin get's behind the wheel after having a few too many and kills someone after her DUI let off with Brandis' brown-nosed letter?

If you want the concept of "fairness", then you'd better think of some better examples!!

pw1:

11 Jun 2014 8:15:07pm

I'm not sure I get your point, or how you can possibly drag politics into this, but I think you missed mine. What I'm saying is that we use fairness misguidedly in my opinion as a reason to be soft on people who loose their licence. Life is not always fair, if you need you licence for your job you had better take the responsibility of how you drive on public roads a bit more seriously.

Paul W:

The current Government are trying to do what the Thatcher Government did in the UK that set back the UK economy so much it still has not recovered.

The myth is that rich people make money and poor people don't. So taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich is supposed to help build the economy.

It does not work that way.

Rich people hang on to their money and poor people spend it. If the poor have less then the economy declines. It's quite simple really.

To build an economy the poor and the middle classes need to be better off. Then the economy grows with the extra sending.

To build the economy we just need to tax the rich more and give tax breaks to the poor.

We have so many being layer off currently with Liberals cuts we risk the economy being put into a recession.They are just not very good at running the economy. The ideology is what is running the Liberals and it's old and failed but still trotted out to fail again.

The rich get richer is all the good that will come of it and to the Liberals that is all that matters.

And for those that think I like Labor: their compulsion to back the coal lobby has them with too little morals for me.

We need to go towards an economy that takes care of our lives and futures. We need to move towards technologies that will work for us in the decade to come not need to be shut down soon like coal.

Solar employs more than coal in Australia.

Our manufacturing sector need a Government with a backbone to stand up to the multi nationals who give us higher prices in the super markets and drive out local production.

tom2:

11 Jun 2014 2:41:17pm

The terrible pity is that the current government is so much out of touch,and does not show any signs of getting together with reality. Abbott has dismally failed,and has to sell his signature policy, his ppl scheme for women of quality,and has dismally failed to adequately explain how it will increase productivity by a billion dollars or more per year, which of course it will not. This government is a disappointment, and its ministers compare badly with their predecessors,particularly in defence and education.

pw1:

v:

11 Jun 2014 2:46:24pm

Peter, Jackie

"Two great traditions of middle Australia are pitted against each other in the aftermath of the Coalition Government's controversial first budget. It's Downward Envy in the red corner v the Fair Go in the blue."

I don't think that either of these are unique to "middle Australia". In fact they are pretty universal traits and, in most cases, happily co-exist in the same person.

"Downward envy" is the bread-and-butter of populism, and it would be very difficult to mount a successful populist campaign like those mounted by Goebbels and Murdoch if this were not a fairly universal feature of individual personalities. Many of the most vicious and bloody progroms in history were the result of the populist tactic of singling out vulnerable groups within our society, re-casting them as "elites" and spreading "blood lies" about them (eg: Jews steal gentile babies for their blood [Goebbels]; boat people are given free Mercedes at taxpayer expense upon arrival in Australia [John Howard]).

And, as for a belief in the "fair go", apart from the terminology, this is another pretty universal trait of human beings. Just about everybody wants to live in a world they see as fair, but their view of what is fair is too often shaped by "downward envy".

But I think that you are right. When Australians voted in September I expect that many who voted for Abbott thought they were getting pretty much the same long-term priorities, just with slightly better book-keeping. As a matter of fact, Abbott went out of his way to re-assure Australians that Australia would remain a fair society and extend that fairness through great reforms like Carbon Pricing, NDIS, Better Schools and the NBN.

Now, after the election it is becoming increasingly clear that Abbott has a very different agenda to that he promoted before the election. And we don't like much of what we see.

Let this be a lesson to us:

Don't be swayed by the policy platforms of the parties in individual elections. Decide what sort of society you wish to live in. Identify the party whose vision for the future most closely resembles yours, and commit yourself to voting for that party long-term. In jumping backwards and forwards, and switching party allegiances on the basis of individual policies, we are leaving ourselves open to manipulation by populist propagandists like Murdoch.

olive:

11 Jun 2014 6:45:01pm

"Don't be swayed by the policy platforms of the parties in individual elections. Decide what sort of society you wish to live in. Identify the party whose vision for the future most closely resembles yours, and commit yourself to voting for that party long-term. In jumping backwards and forwards, and switching party allegiances on the basis of individual policies, we are leaving ourselves open to manipulation by populist propagandists like Murdoch."

Exactly right! I just hope majority doesn't commit to the conservative ideology.

anote:

11 Jun 2014 2:54:37pm

"Perhaps it's not just the budget measures, but the perceived changing fabric of society that Australians are not prepared to accept." I take that to mean not just each budget measure on its own but the equity of the package.

For me ...

... that is one important reason.

... a complementary, equally important reason is the lies that preceded the budget. They cannot be trusted and there needs to be repercussions for the lies.

... and "... its potential to accelerate the unravelling of the kind of Australia they want to live in."

The Coalition does not have much of a vision of building an Australia the people might want. Their bias is to give a free market more importance than social justice in determining a future Australia.

v:

"The Coalition does not have much of a vision of building an Australia the people might want."

It is not so much that they merely lack a vision for the future of Australia, but that they are actively hostile toward the idea of having a vision or (even worse) planning to achieve that vision.

Most political parties define themselves by clearly stating what they believe in and identifying and promoting a particular vision for the future of society. The Liberal Party is an odd beast, and may well be unique in the history of politics, because it was founded (according to its founder) to oppose the achievement of the Labor Party's vision of an independent, well-educated, healthy social-democratic nation, and Menzies said as much in his inaugral speech as the boss of the party. In other words, the Liberal Party defines itself, not by what it stands FOR, but by what it stands AGAINST, and promotes itself for what it ISN'T, not what it IS.

Tories harbour the same hatred of planning as they do of scholarship. They see both as a threat to their privileges and power. They prefer to portray the world as random and incomprehensible and set themselves up as the only "authorities" who can make sense of it. Humanity, they argue, is incapable of planning its own future and must therefore submit itself to the gods of a mythical "free market" (for whom they speak).

As a general rule, when people take so much effort in discouraging people from thinking for themselves, they are trying to hide something, or they don't really believe what they are saying is valid, or both.

taxedoff:

11 Jun 2014 4:50:59pm

well said , the liberals who are anything but liberal in view want to rule by division and maintain their own status quo. if they were as liberal as the word then they would strive for equity and community and freedom from marginalisation and yet all the great societal advancements have been under the labor party and these advancements have been derided and fought against by the libs. true liberals would have many of the labor policies but they are unable as they are not liberal in any way fit/ the cliched cry of class warfare is shouted from the liberals when ever attempts are made which are in effect real " liberal" agendas to reduce the class differences and advance equity. the thought of equity goes against the safety barriers of the class of haves against the larger have nots.

Desert Woman:

11 Jun 2014 5:10:37pm

Oh so nicely put v. Yes, they believe in a mythical beast, that not so free market that is in the process of enslaving us all. That indeed is the 'vision' of those who created the theories that fuel the 'free market', a caste system or something akin to Eric Blair's vision of 1984. The reality, however, is that while Big Brother appeared to get away with it, these societies are inherently unstable and ultimately fail in one way or another. Australia is a very self respecting little country as the Coalition is in the process of learning and quite frankly, I think they have just about done enough in their first budget to ensure that whatever happens, and it could be very 'interesting', the 'free market' has just about done its dash here.

NotMyName:

11 Jun 2014 2:55:21pm

This budget hasn't taken into account P.M. Abbott's cold war stance against Russia and China, the arms race hasn't started but it is going to accelerate very soon, and Australia's dying industrial base wont pay for it, or build for it. How long before Canberra comes out with a defence levy, or will PM Abbott use the same tired attempt at cutting social services, health and education to pay for his political ideology. Future generations are going to be worse off; our politicians' have to look to their paymaster lobbyists' for guidance.

Francie:

11 Jun 2014 2:55:56pm

As Australians who have a certain way of life, known around the world, why does this Government have to change things?

If we are unhappy with the type of nation Australia is becoming, we will have no hesitation in voting out those who seek to change it. This should be a stern lesson to those in power now who want to "Americanise" our society.

Australia is a great nation and at least under Labor we had a glimpse of what this country could become with education as a priority, good health outcomes, personal freedom and a good social welfare program (whether you agree with it or not).

I never want Australia to become a nation where whole families are living on the street, in their cars, squatting in derelict houses and living from hand to mouth. Two weeks ago I even had a man ask me if I was going to finish my meal........or could he have it......and this was in the great country of USA !!!

Young people of Australia deserve better than what the LNP Government is proposing and the priority of education will ensure that their future will be much brighter. If as a nation we should invest in our youth as they are the future of our country.

Never mind the unhinged reliance on "surplus" being a God, if we can service our spending and bring Australia into the 21st Century, then we would align ourselves with what many big businesses do? A surplus is just a boastful amount of money in the bank and is absolutely useless to anybody unless it provides afuture through investment in what the country needs.

Jay Somasundaram:

We need to urgently implement a Genuine progress Indicator, rather than relying simplistic targets such as GDP and financial budgets.

A real problem we face is that the skills and competencies that the skills and competencies that politicians need to get elected are very different from the skills needed to run a country.

Consider Abbotts repeated mantra that taxes kill jobs. That is simply false. Taxes simply re-distribute money from one sector to another. If the taxed sector is more capital intensive, then more jobs will be created since the money is spent on labour rather than capital.

v:

"A real problem we face is that the skills and competencies that the skills and competencies that politicians need to get elected are very different from the skills needed to run a country."

Yes, this is a bit of a problem, and it is our fault, not the fault of politicians. You see, we're lazy. We don't want to have to think seriously about big issues, especially when some of the stuff this sort of thinking leads to will not come to fruition until after we are dead. But this is exactly the sort of deep and responsible thinking that builds nations.

If you are in a rowboat in the middle of the ocean, it is a good idea to decide on which shore you should head for and start rowing. If you decide to reverse your direction every few hours, you will end up exactly where you started. But, if you stick to your decision and keep rowing in one direction, you are bound to bump into the shore eventually. So the decision to row to shore is far more important than the choice of which shore because, until you start heading in one direction or another, you will not reach ANY shore.

The day-to-day policies offered up by parties before elections are of little consequence compared to their ideology and vision for the future. Rather than wasting time examining individual policies and arguing about their cost, we should be making our choices based on what sort of society we want to build. Those who see our future as a social-democratic nation should vote Labor. Those who see our future as a liberal-democratic nation should vote Green. Of course, all those who fear or loathe the future will continue to vote for the Tories.

Jay Somasundaram:

11 Jun 2014 6:05:48pm

I sometimes think that the polices are far less important than competence and integrity. The stated policies between the major parties are not that strikingly different. And yes, we aren't very good at picking the right leaders, but then the systems for selecting and training political leaders is quite poor.

Would Australia be better served if our GG and PM switched roles?

Peter Cosgrove is a widely skilled and tested leader, recognised for his integrity. And Tony Abbott? Yes he ran a couple of Ministries, before he got the job, but did he do a stand-out job as minister?

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:50:22am

Barry Jones was on TV a few days ago pointing out that the reason our politicians, from both major parties, were rubbish (and that we weren't looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses) was that they'd never done anything else but be politicians or work for politicians (Abbott worked for Hewson - who's still saying sorry!), whereas in the past politicians came from all walks of life - they had real world experience and they knew that the decsions they made in Canberra had real consequences for real people - and that had been lost.

It's ironic to consider that Plato worked all this out 2600 years ago, suggesting that politics wasn't something you could enter until you were 50 and had 'been around' (he also pointed out that anyone who wanted leaderhip shouldn't have it). Canny bloke.

Denny:

Perhaps this budget would be better received if the ABC and Fairfax applied a little balance to their attacks on Abbott.

This is not an unfair budget. It just asks everyone to do some lifting. The rich already pay the lions share of tax, not that you would know it from the tripe peddled by the ABC and Fairfax.

The head of the OECD has praised the budget. The head of Treasury has said it is what is needed to fix the long term problems in the budget. The head of the RBA agrees. Why is it that the ABC and Fairfax ignore the two top economic bureaucrats in the country?

garybenno:

11 Jun 2014 3:47:22pm

Denny, you say "The rich already pay the lions share of tax" but how does this stack up against a percentage of salary when you compare the top and bottom salaries. A case in the spotlight right now is the CEO of Australia Post on a salary of over 4 million p.a. and about to retrench 900 staff, just how is this a fair and equitable distribution of the nations wealth, the whole gamut of senior exec salaries compared to the average wage of their employees staggers me beyond belief and I can assure you it is not sustainable by any modern or historical measure. Bluntly! it has to change and as soon as it begins to we may see a fairer and more equitable Australia and hopefully the rest of the planet.

Karen:

11 Jun 2014 3:48:27pm

What utter tripe Denny.

The endorsements by OECD etc are simply to aim at a surplus nothing more nothing less.

The unfairness is very simple - wealthy can afford the increased taxes and charges that Abbott and Hockey lied about far easier than the wealthy - or is Gina R the same position as an unemployed, sick, or pensioner?

v:

11 Jun 2014 4:08:05pm

Denny,

"Perhaps this budget would be better received if the ABC and Fairfax applied a little balance to their attacks on Abbott."

The ABC and Fairfax simply report the news, abeit with a strong conservative bias. If you do not like the news, you should be getting angry at those responsible for making the news, not those responsible for reporting it.

The simple fact is that there is no way of producing the "balanced" news and still telling the truth. Some things simply reflect badly on some people. This is not an "attack".

If Mr Abbott didn't want his budget portrayed as "unfair" the simple solution was to produce a fair one. Instead he has tried to hide his highly reactionary policies behind an entirely confected need to "share the lifting".

Until Spetember, the was no budget crisis and no need for heavy lifting. Our economy was out-performing all of its peers and competitors and was the envy of the western world.

While it is true that the situation and outlook have deteriorated sharply since then, it is also true that the more positive outlook could easily be restored simply by dropping Hockey's reversal of fiscal settings and returning to the proven counter-cyclical settings in place before the election.

Mr Hockey and Mr Abbott have created a "budget emergency" that did not exist before September and need not exist now, by replacing proven counter-cyclical fiscal settings with the same pro-cyclical settings that caused the Great Depression. Ordinary Australians are under no obligation to do any "lifting" at all, because there is nothing to "lift".

I think that you need to grow up. Telling the truth is not "attacking", it is simply telling the truth.

Denny:

11 Jun 2014 5:39:15pm

v. What news outlet reports the news with a strong conservative bias? What planet do you live on? lets go thru them:Ch 9: Laurie OakesCh 7: Mark RileyCh 10: Paul BongirnoABC: ABC - everyone. Not a conservative among them.SBS: SBS - Better than the ABC but still of the left.

Your turn. Give me 3. Not Bolt or Jones or Ackerman. They write opinion for the most part and I can match you with 100 leftie opinion writers.

Look at the Ch 10 plant of Vilma Ward and ABC using a sex worker. maybe you can tell me the last time Gillard or Rudd went to say Ben Fordham and spent 30 mins taking calls from conservatives? Never.

Maybe Gillard could have gone on Michael Smith when he still had a job. Maybe you remember. Gillard used her influence as PM to shut down the story, cost Michael Smith and Glenn Milne their jobs and the media said nothing.

Cowards or completely biased? I say biased. They wouldn't be cowards if Abbott pulled such a disgraceful stunt. It amazes me that those of the left approve. It just shows that with the left and the left media its not the issue that's important but the side.

v:

11 Jun 2014 6:28:15pm

Denny,

"What news outlet reports the news with a strong conservative bias?"

All of them.

Australian politics has a strong conservative bias, so this is not so surprising. A truly independent news service would be seen by most Australians as biased to the left, just as Tories see science, logic, history and just about everything else as biased to the left.

The problem is that we all see ourselves as being at the centre of the political spectrum, and everybody who disagrees with us as either biased to the left or to the right. From your perspective, somewhere to the right of Attila The Hun, just about the entire universe must appear to be horribly biased to the left.

But Australia's press is biased to the right by the irrational demand that they present a "balanced" view, which gives irrational and erroneous opinion from the far right an entirely undeserved relevance and credibility. The results of exhaustive and meticulous scientific research have to be "balanced" by the rantings of self-opinionated ideologues like Alan Jones and Ian Plimer. Why?

Forget about bias. It doesn't matter because everything is biased. What you see as being to your left or right is entirely dependent on where you are standing. When you grow up, you will understand this.

Desert Woman:

11 Jun 2014 6:55:46pm

Denny, you make a distinction between opinion and news reporting so have you ever considered that the facts that these outlets report do not support your views? The other way of saying it is that Abbott and co have fed you an almost exclusive diet of porky pies.

Look at the cowardice of Abbott and Hockey and Pyne - run away from News - Abbott overseas, wont go to universities because he is afraid ...hahaha kidding right, Wont go to Indonesia... wont meet IMF or world Bank, Cant do an interview without Peta Credlin in his earpiece...Worst govt ever and an international embarrassment with their flat earth policies.

kevh:

11 Jun 2014 7:01:06pm

v,I wouldn't vote for Abbott if you paid me. Then again I won't vote for the other mob either. So I don't have a tribal loyalty to display here. This government delivered a shocker of a budget and has stumbled badly in it's prosecution of the case for it. They deserve to cop a pasting for that. I agree with you on that front.

However, let's be honest for a bit. The collective reaction from the 'progressive' press has been much more than a pasting. It has certainly been much more than merely truth telling.

Prior to the election, most on this site railed against the biased and relentlessly negative reporting that the Labor government got from the conservative press (The Oz et al). All fair in my view. The Murdoch press were blatant in their support.

But not to be outdone, since the election the same level of bias and relentless negativity has been aimed at the Lib/Nat government by the 'progressives', led by the Fairfax press.

For a truly disinterested observer such as myself who genuinely seeks some balance in the national debate, I find it sickening that the level of vitriol hasn't diminished, just the source and the target. To me, it makes no difference if it's the Oz v Labor or the Age v Lib/Nat. Bias is bias and it should be called out as such.

Unfortunately hypocrisy abounds. Most on this site, including you, seem content to turn a blind eye to the biased vitriol, as long as it serves the cause. When we cop it, it's blatant and terrible. When it's against the other mob, it's truthful and responsible.

I agree with your last point. There is some growing up to be done. Denny's not on his Pat Malone on that front.

Noah's Ark:

12 Jun 2014 3:36:31am

kevh Even the simple fact that the MSM and the Murdoch media gave so much oxygen to Abbott's attack on Gillard about Gillard lying about the Carbon Tax and all the bluster about how much the Carbon Tax was adding to the budget of ordinary Australians generally and that the Carbon Tax was the ruin of Australia as an economic prosperous nation has come back to bite hard at Abbott and Hockey.

The fact that every Australian now knows to some extent at least that Abbott has Lied his way into office and has Lied since getting into office as PM along with the LNP on so many occasions in the last 6 months alone and treats the Australian public with disdain is enough on its own to topple the Abbott LNP. The die is cast.

Kevh without going on about the so termed contrived in yours and other LNP supporters words only, the Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum effect of the media. It is well known that the Murdoch media wields great power and persuasion in Australia (although thankfully this is on the decline) and the majority of the rest of the MSM lean heavily towards the "Right". The ABC is neutral although any critisim of the right no matter how constructive is seen and exploited as Left wing Bias.

This observation is made without even going into commenting on the disasterous, mean and nasty Hockey Budget. The worst in living memory and I'm no spring chicken.

Kevh. What you have attempted in your post is a veiled apologist for the Abbott government against the current outcry by the majority of Australians against this government and its budget. This unstoppable outcry by the majority of Australians is unprecedented and certainly not what was countered for by Abbott and Hockey.

Hockey's weak kneed reactionary attempt to try to "Wedge" a greater section of the Australian population into accepting this budget and changing its stance will wash over like the incoming tide on a moss covered rock in the ocean. The Australian electorate will not buy it. The Abbott LNP is dead in the water, despite whatever tack, subterfuge and propaganda its ardent Neo Conservative supporters may "Grasp" at.

v:

"The collective reaction from the 'progressive' press has been much more than a pasting."

Australia does not have a "progressive" press. The most left-wing of our major outlets would sit in about the middle of the conservative spectrum by international standards.

It is a measure of just how bad this budget is that it has been almost universally condemned, not just by our mildly conservative news services, but by economists, educators, health professionals, business leaders, taxi drivers and such, and there appears to be a very long queue of critics who are yet to be heard.

Even the Coalition's barking dogs Jones and Bolt were so horrified by the budget that they dreamed up a leadership challenge by Turnbull in a desperate attempt to create a distraction.

I have been watching Australian politics for close to half a century now, and I have never before seen a federal budget so universally condemned. This is not the result of press bias - it is the result of a disastrous budget. Be fair.

kevh:

12 Jun 2014 1:55:17pm

v,You may have noticed I placed progressive in inverted commas - I get the fact they're centre leftists, not true progressives.

As I stated, I also get the fact that the Budget is a stinker and deserves a pasting. This is not just about the Budget though, if it was I wouldn't have posted. There has been relentless negativity in the Fairfax press towards the government since day dot. It's as if they've determined that they will take on the same carping Nigel Negative role in the national political debate that the Oz did for the Labor years.

I maintain that the only things that have changed are the source of the bias, the target and the reaction from the likely suspects on this forum.

I have no respect nor fondmess for either side of the mainstream political fence. I think both sides are empty, hollowed out shells of once respectable institutions, focussed primarily on gaining and maintaining power as an end in itself, not as a means to an end.

As I've tried in vain to say though, this isn't about them. It's about us. It's about having the opportunity to really honestly and objectively hold them all up to the light, without fear or favour. That simply does not happen in Australia. The media serves as either assassin or cheerleader. They pick sides and report accordingly. If you think that's just the Murdoch press, then half a century of watching this sorry circus has taught you little.

EVAN:

gbe:

11 Jun 2014 3:02:29pm

Is the coalition austerity version of Australia the one we want or have to have.

Perhaps there should be a DD election and then we can see if Labors version of Australia is what is best. We can then see if endless borrowing to pay for governments and their employees is sustainable after all.

I am all for it lets borrow another 500 billion up the wages up the welfare up the workers open the boarders lets do it.

MT_Syd:

11 Jun 2014 3:36:58pm

Menzies didnt mind a deficit...he delivered 17 of them in a row

but we dont need to borrow to deliver the promises that the LNP made, we just need a better and fairer system of redistribution. There is more than enough low hanging fruit in the welfare the very wealthiest get to pay for Gonksi, bulk billing, and the NDIS

Gordon:

11 Jun 2014 6:38:18pm

Menzies had growth and went for more. Famously sold iron to the Japanese. Try telling Menzies ghost we're too pure to dig up coal or flog uranium to the Indians. Growth pays for deficits. You want safe, steady and squeaky clean you gotta count ya pennies.

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 8:59:03am

Menzies - along with many others - had deficits because he understood that govt isn't a business and its job isn't to make a profit (in fact making a profit from our taxes means not giving it back in services; that's theft). Govt is akin to a homeowner, not a business and on a financial level its job is to keep up the mortgage payments while still providing a good home, good health, and education etc for the family. Paying off the mortgage will happen but its not the goal - the goal is the home and agood life for the kids.

The neo-cons forgot all this. And every indicator other than GDP has been going backwards or stagnating since that happened. Even (heavens to betsy), even GDP rates of growth in the west are half the rate they were between 1945-1980 compared to 1980-2010. The evidence is in. This way of doing business and politics doesn't work.

v:

11 Jun 2014 4:27:04pm

gbe,

"We can then see if endless borrowing to pay for governments and their employees is sustainable after all."

Our debt in September was slightly under $200 billion and, with Labor's counter-cyclical fiscal settings in place, would have peaked at around $300 billion. Our debt is still around the $200 billion mark, but is now projected to blow out to over $600 billion. The ONLY thing that has changed in the meantime is a switch from Labor's counter-cyclical fiscal settings, to Hockey's pro-cyclical settings. And this has had the effect of doubling the projected debt, shaving one-third off our economic growth forecasts and delaying a return to surplus for many years.

The "coalition austerity approach" is nothing new. Herbert Hoover was a major promoter of the idea, and his name became immortalised in the hundreds of shanty towns that sprang up in parks around the United States during the Depression. They were all called "Hooverville" in honour of the man who caused them. The Great Depression and the famine it caused killed seven million US citizens and created millions of internal refugees. It was one of the greatest disasters experienced by the US, and it was all due to the blind ideology of a stupid Tory.

Pro-cyclical fiscal management sort of fell out of fashion after that unmitigated disaster, and it was not until the mid-seventies, when the pain of the Depression was finally fading from the popular consciousness, that it once again reared its ugly head. But it failed disastrously at its first test in Greece, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Iceland and so on. And it will fail just as disastrously in Australia.

One of the most definitive symptoms of is a tendency to repeatedly attempt a failed strategy, each time in the expectation of a different result. Pro-cyclical fiscal policy overheats economies in booms and collapses them in downturns. Fiscal policy has to be used to COUNTER, not to PROMOTE the fatal instability of capitalist markets. Counter-cyclical policy can provide capitalist markets with a semblance of stability that makes the society that depends on them into a liveable place.

Without constant, counter-cyclical intervention by government, capitalism produces a society that is unfit for humans. It is the job of government to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse by stailising capitalism with counter-cyclical policy. Anybody who cannot understand this fundamental truth has no business attempting to run an economy.

v:

11 Jun 2014 4:37:11pm

foolking,

"isn't it about the fact that most people work way longer hours and are not paid for it?"

Years ago, I worked in the industrial relations department of a major resources company. The unions were complaining about what they called "an epidemic of unpaid overtime". We decided to call their bluff and survey our employees, planning to use the figures to whack the unions around the head and shoulders. But it backfired.

You see, the unions were telling the truth. The average employee of this great resources company was working 2 hours of unpaid overtime per week. Had my company been paying its workers ordinary time for the extra time they were spending at work, it would have added millions of dollars a year to the wages bill. That was in 1984.

A few year later, I was working in local government and was the union delegate. The issue of unpaid overtime came up again and once again management opted to call out the unions by holding a survey. The result was that the average employee of the council was contributing 4 hours of unpaid labour per week.

A recent nation-wide survey revealed that Australian workers were subsidising their bosses to the tune of several billion dollars per year, by working extra hours without being paid.

This is a HUGE problem. We need to find a solution. We cannot allow mostly foreign corporations to continue to steal from Australian workers so blatantly. We owe it to future generations to stand up now.

rufus t firefly:

12 Jun 2014 9:02:52am

Had a similar experience as a cop in the 2000s. An internal study of unpaid hours worked out to be equivalent to several hundred extra officers (approx 5% extra staffing). That study was done to examine a perception of rorting by staff. Backfired badly.

Dazza:

Dazza:

"The one thing that really grinds my gears is that if it cost less to create real full employment, why hasn't anyone done that ?"

(Apologies if this appears twice.)

I remember hearing an economist talking about this a few years ago.

He stated that if there was full employment then interest rates would rise. This is due to the Reserve Bank seeing that there is no pool of unemployed to fill job vacancies, then fear that the economy will grow too fast and will then have to apply the brakes by increasing interest rates.

Any government that announced they had "full employment" would be an economic dunce!!

Dazza:

Ted:

11 Jun 2014 3:22:43pm

The opening paragraphs sum it up. "If voters could just understand.... ." The current problem according to the government is not that the basis of the current budget is flawed but that voters are too stupid to understand. Accordingly, they need to be cajoled like children or threatened, as in a double dissolution. When a government starts to threaten its own people you know the end is not far away.

To return to a positive view of the country and our prospects we need to rid ourselves of a government which can only sprout doom and gloom about contrived emergencies. The push for a fair go will eventually win out.

Cal:

11 Jun 2014 3:32:58pm

In all my years of following Australia politics, I have never seen a budget where the wheels have completely fallen and it is stuck in the mud. The prime Minister has stopped selling it, but rather has gone overseas on what is looking like a sightseeing trip, almost no one in the Government (front or back bench) has anything to say about it - they are mostly running a mile from it. Even the Treasurer sees to think most of it is not worth defending.It is hard to believe this is a Government elected less than a year ago with a very healthy majority.

In seriously doubt if Abbott or Hockey will be able to hold onto their jobs

John in Brisbane:

11 Jun 2014 3:39:12pm

Nice article and thanks for doing the survey. As with a previous survey in 2007, it reminds me that people are often smarter than politicians take them for. In that previous survey of high income earners, an overwhelming majority favoured increased spending on services and infrastructure rather than tax cuts.

The problem is that those happiest with the current trends are better at making their points. They're helped by several other factors though:

1. The cold war. It still looms over us all, making it easier to demean those proposing anything other than pure, unregulated market-based economies. "Lefties" is a common, almost racist put-down used against anyone who questions the wisdom of the aforementioned unregulated capitalism.

2. Media companies are increasingly likely to be large businesses. Without any other bias, that's enough to make them naturally more concerned about the affairs of large businesses.

3. We might cut down tall poppies but there is a tendency to show some respect to people who've done well. The problem is that those people are often only good at one thing, which might be as simple as importing cheap stuff from China.

Adonis:

11 Jun 2014 3:40:46pm

OMG, Realist....your comments reflect exactly the essence of this article. Do you not get the bigger picture? Societies prosper on the strength of their binding social fabric born out of equality and fairness, not just the dollar. The coalition's focus exclusively on the dollar is blinding their vision....but that has always typified Tori ideology.

Rabbit:

11 Jun 2014 3:40:52pm

Australians very clearly want an unfair and unequal society. That is why they voted for the coalition.Don't try the excuse that "they didn't tell us before the election that they were going to do this". They did not tell us, but that is irrelevant, as everyone already knows what the coalition stands for. And yet they still voted for them.

As a result we get the government that most people want - that is, a government that works solely for the rich, big business, and the polluters. A government that attacks the less well off in society, attacks any group or part of society that disagrees with it, and a government that has nothing but complete hatred and contempt for the natural environment (which is why the government is conducting a war on the environment).

MT_Syd:

Gordon:

11 Jun 2014 6:07:20pm

No. Australians (enough to carry the day anyway) wanted an end to the previous circus. We will bring an end to this circus too, when and if the alternative gets itself together and addresses the issues that got them slung out. We live in hope. Whining that the majority of Australians must want all these evil straw men you hyperventilate about is simply proof that this hasn't happened yet.

redrover:

11 Jun 2014 3:41:27pm

What else should we expect from a party/govt that represents, ideologically, the people who want as little government as possible?

They outsource vision to big business and put all their eggs in one basket fantasising about some pipe dream free-market Utopia. Nevermind that the principles of free market survival-of-the-fittest and utopia are mutually exclusive ...

graazt:

11 Jun 2014 4:20:51pm

"What else should we expect from a party/govt that represents, ideologically, the people who want as little government as possible?"

Only in the context of being able to maximise profits. The Coalitions other natural constituents have no issues with big government. From banning drugs, paying school chaplains, preventing voluntary euthanasia to cranking out the full security apparatus and being tough on law and order issues. Anti-consorting and anti-terrorism laws aren't exactly liberal. Nor is mandatory sentencing.

The Liberal Party is economically "liberal", but socially "conservative".

observer:

11 Jun 2014 3:45:06pm

One thing is for sure is that polarisation of politics and society is on the rise, and therein is a serious problem, because the answer to most of the problems we face lie somewhere in the middle and requires bipartisanship to reach a compromise. The current LNP government is on the right of politics, only listens only to business, blames high wages and low productivity on the unions and on a lazy workforce. Each side of politics provides a myopic view of where we are and where we going, they all use fear uncertainty and doubt to persuade the population that they have the right policies. Added to that the amount of corruption in politics and is it no wonder that the population has lost its faith in our politicians. What is also true is that self interest and greed is alive and well in australia, and the willingness to drive for a fair go is becoming irrelevant. I presume the LNP want us to become more like the USA????????????. And as for the budget, the majority of experts agree that it is an unfair budget - the poor will get even poorer and the rich will get even richer, but that's life. The increase in the minimum wage (not a living wage) suggested by the Chamber of Commerce should be $8 per week - that would pay for one visit to the doctor after the budget. The more money one takes out of the economy at the bottom the more the overall economy will suffer.

Nova4avr:

11 Jun 2014 3:46:08pm

Congratulations Peter Lewis & Jackie Woods for a right on target article about what people really think of the budget & what the LNP are doing.The harshness of this budget & the complete lack of compassion from pretty well all the LNP members of Federal Govt. has really shocked me to the core. I knew they were going to be hard before the election, but to see what they have actually come up with is just obscene. 52% of the "heavy lifting" done by the low income & pensioners, 4% by high income earners & 0% by the big end of town. What a disgraceful action.If you are not Big Coal, Big Oil, Big Gas & Big Steel you are going to be hit by this draconian Govt. They should be absolutely ashamed of themselves & too embarrassed to show themselves in public.

Rob:

11 Jun 2014 3:53:39pm

'Well-this is one of the most hopeful articles I have read.It seems to be saying Australians have at last woken up to the failure of the free market ideology and are seeing the dangers it poses to the kind of Australia we want to live in .COME ON AUSSIE- -indeed.

What the PM and his fellow rusted on neo cons do not get is that what those of us who do not agree with his economic rationalism do NOT hate business-what we do hate is what capitalism has become . To quote IMF whistle blower John Perkens " The specific kind of mutant, viral form of predatory capitalism. It has created an extremely unstable, unsustainable.unjust and dangerous world" A cursory look around the world will reveal the truth of those words.As John Perkens also says " we must get rid of the root cause of that cancer which is destroying the whole system"

There are more and more people saying exactly the same thing. Bill Shorten please take note-but also note Australians are as sick of union and political corruption as they are of the web of global corruption.

Frankly I did not care who it will be who will come clean-tell it as it is and lead the fight to rid us of the cancer- as long as someone does- if not? we shall all be rooned!!

Kitty:

11 Jun 2014 3:56:12pm

I think your conclusion is right, Australians do want equality and opportunity and a fair go is important.The Abbott/Hockey budget is pure ideology in favour of LNP backers and they can't defend the indefensible. The age of entitlement continues for big business/money while ordinary workers do the heavy lifting.I have never seen such energy in voters before as shown with the marches. Every section of society is engaged and many lies are being confronted. Abbott is the emperor with no clothes and MSM is held in contempt for the protection racket and encouragement he has received over 4 yrs.Rights at work and wages are being attacked through the back door and people know work choices when they see it.Betrayal and lies will not be rewarded.

FlapDoodle:

11 Jun 2014 4:04:24pm

The coalition parties seem bent on creating an unequal society, when of course they come from the cosseted section of that society. Their offspring and friends will be looked after as we have seen in recent events. Denials of this state of affairs are as lacking in any truth as the Conservative parties' denials of their pre-election promises. It is no longer a primary question of policy but a primary question of truthfulness. One can no longer vote for LNP policies as there is no certainty that such policies will ever be carried out, even if one believes in the policies. Policy will be denied in favour of party political expediency by Mr. Abbott and his colleagues at every turn. In this environment the only viable alternatives to the Conservatives are the publicly truthful alternatives. As a liberal voter in the past they have alienated me, probably for the last time - I do not trust them anymore.

wandererfromoz:

11 Jun 2014 4:04:51pm

I do agree with this article - but sigh! will you people stop the slanging match between so called 'right' and 'left' when in the main you are both too often in the wrong - it does not help - there seems to be a group who jump in boots and all defending what the government does whereas opinion polls and the bottom of the barrel voter satisfaction Prime Minister is thought of otherwise.

Australians have a strong sense of fairness and it is not about so called mythical entitlements. Fairness does not mean entitlement. What it means that if the golden rule is to apply and there is meant to be equality and equal opportunity and some get rubbed out in the process the others ditch in - and reflects the old adage "be nice to the people you pass on the way up the ladder because in all likelihood you will meet them on the way down".

Many very well off parents worry that their children will struggle to own their own home. Many, many well off people give generously of time and effort and money to help the homeless, dispossessed and even surprisingly those who have suffered the consequence of just "lock them up and throw away the keys". If you have kids you worry realizing that when you built your home you did not find the crushing on costs now imposed. Realizing when you went to University under a scholarship you only paid a cost if you failed a subject. Realizing so many things in a life span of experience that you become more compassionate, more caring and more understanding of failures, defeats, misplaced steps, the effect of illness and consequences resulting from sudden death to those left behind. So fairness grows, compassion deepens and scorn is heaped on those who do not help, who are ruthless to the poor and oppressed even if it is deemed to be "all their own fault" - who is to judge - who is to condemn?

This budget is deemed by many conservative people who voted for this government as being ruthlessly unfair, crushing the poor and yes seeking to divide the nation - the only ray of hope is those who now support the government are fast dwindling in numbers - despite the appalling record of incompetence and ineptitude of the previous government.

And that swift change is just so so amazing - no one predicted this could have happened? - or did they perhaps better knowing the PM as a person than any of us.

GJA:

Real Mcoy:

11 Jun 2014 4:19:00pm

Agree with article / survey results. Problem for Government is majority of Australians Just don't want what they are selling and pursuing. Slowly but surely will be more like the USA with all its social and inequality issues and crime. This is not the Aus we want or need to have.

old67:

11 Jun 2014 4:20:42pm

Today is 11/6/2014 when will you all stop living in the past looking at this today. This LNP government is well out of its league. Clueless is being kind this country is going down the drain just bring on another election enough is enough. We are in a LNP RECESSION in this country and its shocking.

Gomez12:

11 Jun 2014 4:22:24pm

One of the main issues with the budget is it's "Cargo Cult" mentality - basically that we ran a surplus while the economy was booming so if we get back to a surplus the economy will automatically boom again. Sadly this view is only shared by total economic illiterates, and pre-industrial tribesmen.

In Reality (Something our delightful politicians avoid at all cost) we ran a surplus due to the boom, not the other way around. Some pretty basic economics tells us that removing money from a "Boom" Economy is sensible management in that it has a cooling effect which slows the growth to a manageable pace. The Howard Government understood this and built a surplus on the back of cooling the economy by taxing more than it spent. The GFC necessitated pushing money back into the economy to stimulate growth and keep the economy strong - again sound economic management.

Our Current Government is removing money from the economy when we are NOT in a boom and is therefore putting pressure on an economy that will struggle to handle it - this is definitely BAD economic management and the only rationale provided is that somehow a Budget Surplus will magically create a strong economy - it won't, it is far, far more likely to push us towards a recession which will require government spending to get us out of (And the LNP are incapable of understanding this it would seem).

Also, do not confuse the gross movement of funds in and out of the economy at the right times being good management with HOW they used the funds - Rudd wasted Billions on poorly thought out schemes and Howard used it to buy votes with tax-breaks, neither of which was sustainable.

But the current budget is based on wishes and dreams and is a very poorly thought out document and is both poor economics AND poor policy.

PN:

11 Jun 2014 4:25:52pm

Well, according to the current Hockey's budget, it certainly is not 'Advance Australia FAIR', because this budget is anything but fair.

The hardest hit are the ones who work all their lives and sacrifice many life's 'luxuries', to save some money for their old age. If you are one of those, I have a very bad news for you. If the current budget is passed, in its current form, in September 2017 government will 're-set' the income and asset thresholds to what the were some 20 years ago. As a result hundreds of thousands of the current (part) Pensioners will lose their pensions. As a matter of fact, any pensioner with any savings will have their pensions reduced. Some may lose up to $24,000 dollars annually. No other section of or society has been hit that hard.

Nina:

11 Jun 2014 10:11:45pm

Australians let us resist... for we are being screwedwith golden handshakes that aboundwho is the true blue fool? our lands abounds in unemployed from economic rationals who send our work over seas and deflect blame to themin joyful strain lets double dissolutionre-frame Australia fair

HC051:

11 Jun 2014 10:45:46pm

Interesting post, in that it is patently false. According to what I have seen, "All pension assets test and income test thresholds will be fixed for three years from 1 July 2017." Hardly re-set to what they were 20 years ago.And it is wrong to suggest that "As a matter of fact, any pensioner with any savings will have their pensions reduced". Are you saying they will be no income free area before pension reduces? I don't think so

Cherna:

11 Jun 2014 4:34:48pm

Any discussion on fairness needs to address who pays $'s into consolidated revenue. There are harsh realities to be learned here, as in an independent review it was determined that only 1 in 2 Australian taxpayers actually contribute anything into consolidated revenue after handouts are factored into the equation.

Statistically this means that a large proportion of latte supping whingers actually contribute zero - in fact they are a drain on the rest who do pay tax. There-in lies the real unfairness.

All but the very poor need to contribute something into consolidated revenue and the ratio should be closer to 3:1; 3 for those that contribute to consolidated revenue and the 1 being those that receive from consolidated revenue (1 representing the poor).

In case you need more evidence the ABS tells us that:

Only the top fifth of households ranked by their income - those with incomes of more than $200,000 a year in the financial year ending June 2012 - pay anything into the system net of the value of social security in cash and kind received, according to data from the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of household income.

This situation cannot be sustained if we are to return our financial system to sustainability. let alone fairness; in short rather than complaining about the cuts that may hurt we need to narrow the social welfare/security net to the poor and the latte sippers need to suck it in and take some pain along the road to recovery (need I say 'for the Nations good').

I for one will accept the pain on the road to recovery but with each bit of pain nut I'll be blaming Labor's 6 years of economic vandalism as the source for the pain. I encourage others to do likewise.

A bit more balance to Peter and Jackie's article would have made it fairer.

Erika:

11 Jun 2014 6:01:58pm

"Statistically this means that a large proportion of latte supping whingers actually contribute zero." How do you work that out? If the latte sippers are not in the lower 50% of income earners (and I thought that was part of the definition of a latte sipper) then they will be making a nett positive contribution to government revenue. It does sound like you want it both ways.

Artful Dodger:

11 Jun 2014 6:20:20pm

Cherna by latte sipping whingers I take it you mean those who use family trusts-negative gearing and other tax evading-avoiding schemes, not the mention those who use/abuse the cash economy. You seem to know a lot about them.

Guess the 1 in 2 Australian taxpayers who actually contribute to consolidated revenue are PAYE workers.You know there were 'independent" studies which said smoking, asbestos even climate change are not harmful to humans.You may accept the economic vandalism of failed free market ideology but I certainly do not- it seem most Australians do not either.

Cherna:

12 Jun 2014 9:37:17am

@Artful Dodger, I'm simply pointing out that studies including data from the ABS has 1 in 2 Australian's contributing nothing into running our great Nation.

With this in mind statistically this would include a large proportion of the middle class. Furthermore. statistically this would also include, from the middle class, the whingers who are not prepared to carry any burden towards sustainability of the very services that are provided to them. By way of example I draw on an example of latte swilling yuppie complaining of paying a $7 co-payment for medical services albeit capped to a max of $70 for the year...

Reinhard:

11 Jun 2014 10:02:22pm

"Cutting taxes has actually been a way of delivering benefits to families particularly low income families and bear this in mind-now under the changes of this Government, something like 60 per cent of Australian families are paying no net tax".Peter Costello in August 2007, apparently quite proud of achieving 60% ..

Cherna:

12 Jun 2014 9:41:02am

@Reinhard, I say in my post "we need to narrow the social welfare/security net to the poor and the latte sippers need to suck it in and take some pain "

So once the poor are taken care of then how about the rest start to contribute to consolidated revenue. Unless you are suggesting that the 1/2 that do not make any contribution are ALL poor? I doubt that such an assertion could be true.

Reinhard:

12 Jun 2014 4:01:19pm

Cherna, we both know that "latte sippers" as you call them are not the problem, they would be the last to complain about cutting back on middle class welfare. The problem lies with Abbott's constituency, the North shore / Toorak elitist millionaires who still think they deserve something back for their "hard earned" tax dollars ..

IEH:

11 Jun 2014 4:39:09pm

A well presented & argued article, with relevant data to support.The Coalition is doing all it can,as fast as it can,to foster & increase this inequality. Their policies and budget announcements spell out the direction they intend taking this country.My biggest concern is where is the Labor Party, our alternative Government, in articulating viable alternatives to arrest this backward slide ? In February I sent correspondence to Bill Shorten re - alternative restucturing of the car industry to counteract its imminent closure by 2017. The multiplier effect, in reverse, of the magnitude of these closures on jobs and other industries, should be of great concern to us all.Still no acknowledgement of my willingness to contribute to finding a viable solution.Makes one wonder that it is all too hard for our governments to channel our intellectual property into making sure we become a clever country, instead of a quarry. Flowing on from that scenario, what a selfish legacy we are leaving our children & grandchildren !

roger:

ltfc1:

11 Jun 2014 5:17:12pm

I've got a great idea! Let's re-elect the Labor party and the majority of this site's contributors will disappear because they'll have nothing to whinge about OK. Well we know it won't be OK because the pages on this site were just as full of complaints and whinging when Labor were in power. How about we try that lot called the Greens! You must be joking right. Palmer now there's a guy who just might change the face of politics in this country, he might also change the name of the country (Palmerland) and start buying all the mines and business's for himself and finally write a book called Politics for Dummies so his independent friends can actually contribute something to this countries future. According to many on this site the only party that shouldn't be elected is the Liberal Party because they don't have any heart and they are mean and nasty. They tax us more, remove welfare benefits and make the poor even poorer. Labor didn't kick single parents in the guts, introduce a mining tax and a carbon tax, steal a billion dollars from universities or rip the guts out of defense spending, no they didn't do any of those things. They didn't waste billions on educational buildings people didn't need, in some cases they even closed the schools after the new building were finished and let's not forget the Pink Batts fiasco where people died and properties were destroyed by politicians who couldn't spell safety. Finally let's not forget the union crooks who run Labor and still do, who stole members money so they could live a good life. Yep it's Labor or there's no future!

Andrew:

11 Jun 2014 5:17:55pm

I think your final paragraph sums up the entire issue very well.

I don't think Australians are necessarily against a rise in taxes or a medicare co-payment per-se, as long as they can see that they will share in the benefits over the long term, so long as they understand what the big picture is.

This government has not sold that, they have engaged in rhetoric, slogans and blaming Labor. And all this in the face of numerous experts- local and overseas - telling us that Australia's economy is basically in good shape. No wonder then that people are deserting Abbott & Co.This also ties in with the fact that the LNP did NOT win the election, Labor lost it. Labor were so disorganized that voters (understandably) went searching for someone - anyone else - to lead them.Tony got in because there was no-one else around. People didn't trust him, people still don't trust him. And now the LNP has a big problem, trying to sell a harsh budget to an already skeptical audience - an audience that now feels justified in their mistrust. And all this with a Senate that is by no means friendly.Tony, Joe & Co are going to have to do some hard yards to get this budget through, then they are going to have to mend a lot of fences with the voters in the coming years.

Marg:

11 Jun 2014 5:24:19pm

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the site today, we read that the CEO is earning $4.8million p.a. and getting rid of jobs. What's better for the economy - one fat cat who can only buy a certain amount of houses and yachts or 48 people on $100k p.a. who can provide a decent lifestyle for their families?

Marg:

Scott55:

11 Jun 2014 5:26:25pm

Great article. Key problems with the budget are the Governments inability to demonstrate policy or thinking behind the changes, their lack of understanding of the details of the changes and their complete lack of any vision for Austalia's future. So the message is that you need to share in the financial pain because the Government says so. Look at the Government's attitude to people who are losing their jobs in car manufacturing. The commentary is that you have lost your job because you belong to a union and earn too much so go get another job, implying preferably on a lower wage. Simplistic, pathetic response from a self-described "responsible adult Government" when a whole industry is being wiped out.

GrumpiSkeptic:

11 Jun 2014 5:35:34pm

Fairness and equity ? Better standard of living ?

Well, fear not, folks. It is all under control. These are being taken care of by Tony Abbott "Calmly and methodically"

Having calmed the waters in Indonesia, he found himself an ideological twin in Canadia. A dignified walk on the red carpet, followed by a 19 gun salute, amply demonstrated Canadia's view on Austria. Between the two chief amigos, they declared jobs ranked the highest among the rest. Can't argue with that, can we?

Then they found a commonest of all threads between the two nations, the damned Carbon Tax. It must bloody well go. Fair enough, I guess, as it stands between jobs and growth, according to them anyway.

I wonder what Abbott said to Harper. May be he said" "You know, Steve, when I rode my bike, I saw those highly offensive wind mills sticking up on the hills. My treasurer Joe drives past them and thought likewise."

The timing is rather unfortunate when Barack Obama and China declared their goals of carbon emission reduction. Just across the border, Abbott and Harper said quite the contrary.

Soon after, Abbott is going to pay the US a visit. He declared "Australia is open for business!" No chance to meet with Obama? Not quite ideological similar? Too busy to meet with the chief of IMF? But there is Rupert Murdoch's name on the diary though.

So is he expecting a DD, and asking for Murdoch's blessing? Or is he asking for advice how to sell his budget?

I guess fairness and equity are always at the back of his mind, but they have to wait, as there is a budget emergency !

CJB22:

11 Jun 2014 5:36:39pm

When the boss of Aust Post earns over $5 million per year and his best policy option is to sack 900 workers then we should all be worried. NOBODY IS WORTH $5 Million per year. These CEOs are laughing at 99% of Australians.

GrumpiSkeptic:

11 Jun 2014 5:53:19pm

I believe it is a bit of "One dollar for you, and there is another for you". The government gets a decent dividend even as the Aussie Post is struggling. I venture to say the chief amigos gets his "just" rewards.

Artful Dodger:

11 Jun 2014 6:25:33pm

Good post- you know I reckon I could do more damage than even Wall Street did- does that 'entitle" me to mega bucks?

That seems to be the criteria pf 'success'these days; why with Clive Palmer's help we are even going to pay criminals (polluters) to do less crime (polluting).Do you get the impression the world is ass up??

Reinhard:

12 Jun 2014 7:17:09am

No Forrest it it beyond belief to suggest that public concern about the budget and growing fear Australia is losing its egalitarian spirit are merely the result of premeditated propaganda. Look around....

Reinhard:

olive:

11 Jun 2014 6:29:32pm

"Perhaps it's not just the budget measures, but the perceived changing fabric of society that Australians are not prepared to accept."

And rightfully so. We shouldn't accept whatever vested interests throw at us. Propaganda machine is in full swing - let's not forget how powerful the propaganda is by not forgetting the propaganda that mining industry inflicted on Australia against the mining tax. Lets not forget LNP's propaganda machine which handed them this government and then inflicting pain on the most vulnerable by calling it "duty to the country".

NWM:

11 Jun 2014 6:46:03pm

Great article - thanks! I have like so many of us, been surprised that my anger at this budget has not diminished as each day I think of different aspects of its unfairness and economic lack of logic, and my anger has now grown with the evidence of even more Abbott arrogance and stupidity as time goes on even since the budget. Fools go where the wiser fear to tread.

One thing that has been distilling in my mind is the notion of caring. Caring for others that have fallen on bad times, whatever the reason. Based on the understanding that bad times can fall on all of us. Maybe this is from the pioneer spirit of the early settlers who knew such hardships and that the sense of togetherness maybe what got them through, or the understanding of the randomness of success, in gold rush days. Whatever the source, I think Abbott and Hockey do not understand this, and they do not feel it. They do not care. About Australians, about the environment and about a fair go.

Unfortunately, other people in the Liberal party have lost touch with it under the relentless pressure that Abbott no doubt places on them. I can only hope that their spirit of fairness and their personal integrity will allow them to reject Abbott and Hockey and make the changes in their party that are needed to bring the changes required to get Australia back on track towards a society that benefits from our resource wealth so that no-one needs to be in dire poverty. Because we know bad times can fall on all of us as it did for me a few years ago, when I ended up needing food from charity to get through, and I have worked very hard to get through those challenges and up again, but I will never forget how wonderful it was to have the safety net of the single parent pension, and charity, there when I needed it. And ironically, having this help enabled me to get back on track quicker, whereas without that, I would still be on poverty street.

Hence Abbott needs to put his society changing policies to an election NOW, which were he honest he would have done prior to the previous election.

dmans5:

11 Jun 2014 6:49:59pm

I think Australian society is weaker and lazy and looking for excuses for not being smarter and more productive. This rich lucky country produces lazy stupid people.They love to hate the tall poppies.A government can make its people weak and dependent , guess which one.

Nina:

11 Jun 2014 6:58:23pm

I am so passionate about this, it is so important. The government wants us to share the load, tighten our belts but to what end? what outcome? It seems this article is voicing a concern that is tangible and very close to the heart of Australians. I did a uni course called "Imagining Australia" it was astonishing the ideas that came about and were manifest with meaning and directive purpose that shaped the now we have. I think the Government has not understood how much a part of our identity a fair go and ideas of equality are, these things that are manifest as medicare and they are also strongly attached to the idea of hard work and not being a bludger. I think people who are out of work because of the decline in employment are educated enough to realise the opportunities have been moved off shore and we are seeking a new government. I think Australians are more afraid of not having a job than they are of an imagined and fearsome deficit, Aussies have been in debt enough to know that a job is what you need not to do less on less. I think it is time for debate, for reflection and discussion about who we are and who we want to be. Thank you Peter Lewis this is something I am eager to contribute to.

Alpo:

11 Jun 2014 7:02:08pm

"voters don't think the market economy is delivering the kind of society they want and explains why arguments from Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey that the best thing they can do for the economy is generate growth by making life easier for business are falling flat".... Spot on, and this perfectly dovetails with the currently plunging consumer and business confidence.

Alpo:

tomtoot:

11 Jun 2014 7:09:51pm

@Jackie woods:- you quote"Around the globe, people have lost faith in their economies as a vehicle of prosperity and see them more and more as battlegrounds between their interests and those of the rich and powerful. And it is not a fight they think they are winning."

I believe this to be true now here in Australia?The carbon pricing to be scrapped?The mining tax - scrapped?The scrapping of a science minister?The scrapping of climate change legislation etc.,?

In Australia we have a parliament acting as the clowns in a circus, buffoons who ignore the majority of society for the sake of the few moguls in the fossil industry.

FlapDoodle:

11 Jun 2014 7:51:00pm

Mr Hockey, and his sock puppet, obviously have a very preferential view of sectarian advantage. He is a danger to the cohesiveness of Australian society. But, of course, that is of little consequence to his foreign supporters and Government agencies in the thrall of the Conservative parties.

Fred:

11 Jun 2014 8:23:50pm

It is far from "fair" to expect the middle class (the proportionally most taxed in the community) to provide and support the under class, many of whom choose not to work.Many of the so called "disability" pensions are simply malingers, who thanks to the actions of the Howard government were shifted from unemployment benefits to disability pensions to create the illusion of low unemployment .The share to labour especially to the higher levels is obscenely unfair . The "workers" (CEO) are the ones who have gained the most not capital as such. The divide between labour needs to be addressed as elite "workers" CEO really are rorting the system . The market has failed in this area

citizen smith:

12 Jun 2014 6:08:20am

And the results of the research paid for by the Australian taxpayer will be 'exported' to overseas corporations and the resulting medical imported products will paid for by the Australian taxpayers. So this government's policy that the Australian taxpayer pays for it coming and going.

Not Such a Golden Oldie:

11 Jun 2014 9:32:10pm

After reading Thomas Pikkety's book, "Capital in the 21st Century", I think that most of the comments to this article are missing the point.I believe that Pikkerty is showing by his research of data over three centuries is that mathematically when the percentage (of GDP) return on capital exceeds the percentage return on labour, inevitably inequality will increase. He demonstrates convincingly that this was so until 1914 and during that time wealth became more and more concentrated in the top 1% of the population. Since equality can never be completely achieved in any society, and maybe should not, then the question of fairness becomes a much more nuanced question than is generally considered.I think that what Pikkertty shows is that in these circumstances an imbalance of wealth becomes institutionalised as inherited wealth. We have become accustomed to the idea that the old order has disappeared, of the 19th century and earlier, of an aristocracy of inherited wealth and then a very small middle class of professionals and merchants and then a vast majority. of the very poor. During the 20th century (from 1914 to 2075 approx), this old model was drastically changed with the emergence of a large middle class and an improvement in the conditions of the so-called working class.Pikketty seems to demonstrate that since the mid 1970's we are in fact heading back to the old model of pre 1914, because the return on capital is again exceeding the return on labour.I think that much of the argument of the "right" is about a fair share to a "meritocracy" not a return to an old style aristocracy with or without titles. In fact many of his charts would support the idea that there has been a very large shift to an inherited (or inheritable) wealth.If that is indeed the direction that the division of wealth in society is taking, then I believe that it should change the nature of the dialogue that needs to take place.The idea of a meritocracy would be supported by many more people than would support a return to the dominance of inherited wealth, both in terms of the creature comforts available due to that wealth and also the power which becomes concentrated in the hands of the few because of that wealth.

Perplexed:

11 Jun 2014 9:34:28pm

OK Hoe Jockey

I am a relatively high income earner, yet your budget doesn't effect me a great deal.

I note you are trying to sell the budget as fair by stating that some wage and salary earners are paying about the equivalent of one months salary to support the welfare system and that those salary and wage earners may feel that this is unfair.

Well from my perspective I do not feel that this is unfair (even if your figures are correct and I have been for a long time very cynical regarding the veracity of any politicians statements) for the very reason that I am acutely aware that I could through no fault of my own become one of the welfare recipients.

Therefore from a purely selfish view point am happy to pay the one month salary as a form of insurance.

However, I am also very concerned regarding the direction we as a nation appear to be taking as evidenced by your budget and its attack on the underprivileged and needy.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are people who are rorting the system, however for every one person rorting the system I suspect here are 100 or more who are absolutely and legitimaly dependant upon through no fault of their own.

It is said that the measure of the humanity of a society is the way in which that society treats the less fortunate members of that society.

It appears that your government is approaching the inhumane and I for one do not wish to condone such a society.

Blue bird 123:

11 Jun 2014 9:45:53pm

I like this article a lot. The much bigger question than the policies presented and debated is the question of what kind of a country do we really want? I agree with Hockey that personal responsibility is valuable thing but the present government (if it can be dignified by that word) has no concept of investing in the young, in community, in the very earth we walk upon. They think of investment as something that creates money alone. As a race, and a nation we really do have to go beyond this uncreative and narrow thinking. Personal responsibility has to be made possible by nurturing it in many ways - rather than throwing people into the water to drown.

Reinhard:

11 Jun 2014 9:46:18pm

I could see this new coalition tactic emerge last year with Hockey's "age of entitlement" speech, quite ironic after all the years of Howard doling out welfare to everyone, regardless of need. They showed their true purpose with the usually divisive anti-welfare rhetoric like "lifters vs leaners" and those on welfare based on need were suddenly alienated. The right think they can justify their alienation by saying they don't make a "net contribution" through the ATO, yet they ignore the very real proportionate contributions they make by paying GST.All the while they still dare to accuse Labor and the left of deliberate class warfare...Hypocrites.......

ynotbbb:

11 Jun 2014 9:53:19pm

I have lost faith in this government and do not expect any change in the next 3 years apart from being worse off financially and more than likely still unemployed.

I am not on the dole but am having to seriously consider my financial position and having already cut back on buying food as when I stand in the shopping isle and look at the prices of food which is going to increase due to the cost of fuel.

The miserably $7 to the the doctor followed by the expense of having to travel to get the blood test for another $7 and then ultra sound another trip to town and $7 dollar a trip to see the specialist $135 plus his $7 and so for myself and a lot of people out here the miserable $7 blows out to another $49 plus fuel add that up Tony Abbott.

This government has to go but who are the choices certainly not Labor who put us in the mess in the first place.

Reinhard:

11 Jun 2014 9:56:02pm

"Government is open to criticism and debate about our budget. However, we owe it to the community to set the facts straight and articulate the reasoning behind our decisions. I want to address the claim head on that the budget is unfair and exacerbates inequality. This misguided cry is made on the claim that not everyone is asked to contribute equally and that in the future some people will pay more for government services or receive less in payments."Joe Hockey in a speech at the Sydney Institute, still not getting the message...

Zany:

11 Jun 2014 10:21:34pm

The now failed treasurer Joe Hockey must reevaluate his position and resign as treasurer. Any country in the 21st century that can't supply health care , schooling, unemployment benefits, liveable pensions has failed its people miserably as this weak government has. Not only that they can't house the young because they believe that negative gearing is a right of the property pimps.This incompetent government must go and soon.

technocore:

Sea Monster :

12 Jun 2014 7:48:40am

Not at all. Instead of cutting pensioners why not cut generous taxation expenditure aimed at the wealthy? We also need to seriously address revenue. We need to claw back the reckless tax cuts they doled out last time they were in.

Gr8Ape:

Noel:

11 Jun 2014 11:31:52pm

Joe Hockey has said that the top two percent of wage earners in Australia pay twenty five percent of the total income tax.

The question this raises is how much wealth do these people possess between them? The top twenty percent own 61% of the total wealth of Australia, but the ATO does not release figures for the top two percent. Is it twenty five percent? Is it more?

General_Loathing:

11 Jun 2014 11:36:33pm

The trouble with these idiots is that they are saying that to deliver the social trajectory we are used to, they have to smack us around a bit. Well, not a bit, alot actually. In order to do this they tell us that unfortunately they have had to lie and misrepresent the fiscal situation to us so that we would vote for them. There are massive holes in their argument and the Australian people are not mugs. No matter what the simple minded Fiberal head office might think, Australians are not mean spirited misers like them. Australians are in general fair minded and, yes, liberal in outlook. This government will go down as one of the most misguided and mistaken in history. Disgust is abroad in this wide brown land and it's squarely aimed at Abbott and his cabal of socially destructive dimwits. Bring on the DD, if only so we can all care about each other again.

DH Pelz:

12 Jun 2014 2:01:13am

Mr Hockey, please read Thomas Piketty's book, and come back and tell us again how "fair" your budget is. Please note: we all pay taxes, whether employed or not, and many of us do not resent the taxes we pay being used to help those less fortunate than we are. Advance Australia Unfair?

citizen smith:

12 Jun 2014 5:56:13am

The previous Liberal government where like a bunch of 10 year olds who had been given the keys to sweet shop, they got very excited and made themselves sick gorging themselves until they worked out to pace themselves and that they keys could be taken away from them. The following Labor government, another bunch of 10 years got the keys to the sweet shop and fought among themselves on who should get he best sweets and how much.

The current government is like a bunch of teenagers who have broken into a sweet shop , they are vandalising it and will burn it to the ground.

NWM:

12 Jun 2014 6:42:53am

This budget is what happens when you let extreme ideology run the show. There is no vision in their ideology, as expressed in Abbott and Hockeys' odd belief that somehow business will sort out the problems, just give them free reign to do so. Applying free market ideology without a vision for a nation is like sending a ship out onto the ocean without a map or a destination. The closest to vision I have been able to see is that given by the IPA - of a freedom for few to pillage Australia for big business and a wealthy few - perhaps their vision is of big homes and privileges for themselves and to hell with the rest of society. It is so one sided and obvious as to be laughable were it not tragic that educated, privileged individuals who have become wealthy through the exploitation of others actually believe it. The extent of their self interest and greed is almost beyond belief. My vision is of an Australia in which our resources are extracted for the financial benefit of Australians and the material benefits of other nations. Of an Australian economy that is strengthened by it's adaption to the need to be ecologically and ethically sustainable, not weakened by a fearful clinging to the fossil fuel industry or the desire to exploit others through pitiful wages. Of Australian business leaders who appreciate that their contribution through taxes and their restraint for their own fair remuneration serves to strengthen the economy, increase the wealth of all, which in turn will make them even wealthier. Of Australians who cheat or rort in any way shape or form to understand the how much more difficult they make the task of creating a fair and caring society. Of an Australia in which no-one need live in poverty, most of all that no-one who falls on hard times is forced into poverty by an avaricious and oppressive government. And of a media that is not vulnerable to the predatory likes of Murdoch and other weathly self interested individuals. Because what we are experiencing now is in large part a result of this latter.

Mr G:

12 Jun 2014 6:52:19am

Excerpt from ABC article and quote from Joe sHockey's speech at the Sydney Institute on Wednesday...

Last night, Mr Hockey defended cuts to welfare, which include a freeze on the eligibility threshold for all government payments, tighter rules for the disability support pension, and shunting people under 25 off unemployment benefits to the lower payment of youth allowance.

"Payments are too broadly available to too many people. As a result, less is available for those most in need," he said.

Here's the hypocrisy... Less is available for those most in need. Let's examine this. Is Joe saying by cutting welfare to so many he will actually be able to pay more to the few who are most in need? Who exactly? Maybe I missed something but the only welfare group that seemed to get an increase was mothers on high salaries. Mothers on low wages get a slight boost due to increase in minimum wage and an increase from 18 wks to 26 wks of leave. Anyone know who else is reaping the benefits of cutting off those who apparently are not really in need?

Paul:

its all good, but if they wanted to listen to you (australians), you would not be fuming right now. let's face it, most of us knew the signs before they were elected, yet we voted them into power.

its time to suck it up!! they dont care, they never did. they are politicians, they want thier perks and thier salaries and than retire to join some thinktank, THAT is how they see their job, whatever they do inbetween is decided by lobbies and interest groups. now, you all should get back to your jobs !!

T1:

12 Jun 2014 7:22:13am

Hockey tries to make us resent paying taxes for welfare recipients ($12,000 pa), as if it's not needed, saying we pay a week's wages for it. How many years of taxpayers' incomes go does it take us to pay an MP pension of $150,000 ? Does he honestly think he just just tell us it's fair and we'll accept it? His hubris. Polies live in a different world deluded about reality for most people. The LNP friends are ultra rich. We can see and we're not stupid and Hockey and Abbott aren't gods or monarchs. They'll have to learn this one day and we must show them.

yakadeeyak:

12 Jun 2014 7:26:04am

The company i work for, i have heard their concept on the way forward with the business as like throwing a grenade into a room, then sit back and with little guidence watch the new ideas rise up from the ashes. In other words, like the car industry, let cetain aspects of a business fall over, in it's place something will come up that fills the void, a new way, a cheaper way will come to the fore.

Well that is what they believe, and it seems Joe & Tony have a similar sit back and see what happens attitude, a risk? Sure is. I always call waht they are doing the Ansett theory, do not help, let it fall, and a cheaper, meaner, leaner version will take it's place, in Ansett's case it seemed to work, in the car industry, it is gone and hard to see what will take up the slack.

So advance Australia where, sit back and watch what will rise from Tony's & Joes ashes. They will be fine, but not thousands of Aussie households.

jk22:

12 Jun 2014 7:33:52am

I unreservedly maintain that the government is earnestly operating to restore budget losses.

Such losses were known so well by so many at the lower end of the spectrum. Ineffective programs, and many people for sure both in high and low domains of government and departmental subsidiary formats, if not consciously were in effect part of the whole loss of credible enterprise [esp in the illness arena] which was seen by most Australians as the outcome of an inept and troubled government.

Sure it's tough. I'm not in a great position myself. But the integrity of the government at it's core is to redeem and re-build - this is of course the real purpose of a manager.

Once the urgency is embraced then benefits always ensue.

Temporary mouthings off are low-level reactions. They are not the stuff that really matters - if what matters is truly what counts.

Harquebus:

12 Jun 2014 7:41:23am

A good article.The underlying problem: Resource depletion compounded by population growth.The only viable solution: Population reduction.

"Which is the greater danger - nuclear warfare or the population explosion? The latter absolutely! To bring about nuclear war, someone has to DO something; someone has to press a button. To bring about destruction by overcrowding, mass starvation, anarchy, the destruction of our most cherished values-there is no need to do anything. We need only do nothing except what comes naturally - and breed. And how easy it is to do nothing."-- Isaac Asimov

bunyip:

12 Jun 2014 8:03:14am

Lewis and Woods have nailed it, they have captured the collective view of Australia. Yes, things have been getting steadily worse since the 1970s. Yes, things will be worse for our children and for their children. Trickle down economics is a nonsense, a mental conceit to allow the thieves to get away with the loot.

Look around the world at the timid and suppine governments ordered about by their corporate masters, afraid to do what they were elected to do by the people. No wonder young people don't believe in the political process. It has been tamed and hijacked by corporate business interests.

This has only just begun folks. The excess and waste cycles of a morally bankrupt economic system leads to only one outcome-famine. When you destroy a productive economy and reduce the population to destitution, illegitimise their political aspirations and destroy their hopes for the future you take away all that supports human life itself.

Terry2:

12 Jun 2014 8:27:40am

The Treasurer in his speech at the Sydney Institute has now clarified that the $7 Medicare surcharge is nothing to do with ?paying off Labor?s debt? or has anything to do with over servicing but is all about a very commendable medical research fund.

The problem is that only the sick and those obliged to visit their doctors (for prescription renewal) are paying to fund the medical research fund; that is lopsided.

A $20 billion medical research fund is a commendable objective but why not spread the cost over the community ? Why leave it just to the sick and poor, those who are bulk billed ?

Why not increase the Medicare Levy across the whole community to provide the medical research fund.

As the $5 (nett) fee surcharge would raise less that $1 billion a year (ie budget papers estimate $3.5 billion over four years) an increase in the Medicare Levy of just 0.25 % would generate something like $1.5 billion a year AND it would not turn our GP?s into ?coin collectors? on behalf of the government, so it would avoid 'red tape' for doctors.

A co-payment was considered by the Hawke government as has been pointed out by the Treasurer BUT it was rejected as being an inefficient way of collecting revenue and would not affect the alleged over servicing issue.

Artful Dodger:

12 Jun 2014 9:46:10am

Joe Hockey asks if it is fair that a cleaner-plumber or sparky loses one month's pay a year to pay for those on welfare. Well it seems most Aussies think it is but what we do think is unfair is the use of family trusts and the many other tax avoidance schemes which result in many not contributing anything or very little to anything in infrastructure- services or welfare that only Governments can provide.

itman:

12 Jun 2014 10:42:40am

So what is to stop the government from further reducing the threshold at which students have to repay the higher education debts? Or for that matter, changing (again) how and when interest is calculated.

Never mind house prices ( I can never afford one anyway given the price vs income ratio these days), but now I'm wondering whether I can afford an education as well.

Joe Hockey recently said the economy is the most important priority for the government.

I think social cohesion is more important (the most important actually), and I don't see how this budget increases social cohesion in the Australian community. I think it reduces it!

BME1910:

12 Jun 2014 11:14:07am

I agree with MJLC I am offended that Hockey dares to argue if it is fair that I work for a month to prop up welfare! Yes a tax system that allows access for the common community and the common good, is a supportable one. I will still work a month a year to pay tax and more tax now that the states will be forced to raise the GST, (Thanks Joe!) but Joe wants to hoard it away and benefit the rich. The 2014 budget is an attack on the working class, limiting our education, health and access to social security. My guess is Hockey has never had to choose between eating and putting on the heater. Guessing he has never had to put his family in the one bed with only the fridge and electric blanket running, warmth in numbers and keeping costs down. Now those families can't go to a doctor because finding $7 is the same as finding a spare $100 nothing left is nothing left Joe. Preventable deaths and chronic disease has been avoided in this country for decades but not now if the medicare reforms are passed. People will die for the sake of $7. Babies will not receive urgent medical care for the sake of $7. Choices that Hockey and his wife will never have to make and live with. Now Joe that is worth celebrating with a jig and a huge cigar!! Tell the public how much pressure has been applied to Australia's famous richest families five on paying their fair share of the tax contribution?? Hmm I read somewhere the ATO paid an infamous expat media mogul 900 million. How fair is that? Maybe he doesn't qualify for the dawn of contribution being an expat and all.

BME1910:

12 Jun 2014 1:05:02pm

Egg is correct. The 2014 budget was an attack on the Australian working class. Attacking education, health and social security of the poor while protecting welfare for the rich. Joe Hockey I bet would never struggle to find $ 7 to take his sick child to the doctor but others who are struggling would. Fair and equitable 21st century education for all students rich or poor is now in question. I bet Mr Hockey or Mr Andrews have never had to put a whole family in the one bed with the electric blanket on so that every body is warm even though they can't afford the heating bill. These are real lives that this draconian ideological budget attacks. Thank God Australians are rallying for a fair go.

Rob:

12 Jun 2014 1:50:19pm

Fairness is such a subjective term. When young, studying and broke fair is getting as much ans you can from government and anyone else prepared to give. When old, retired and living from savings made throughout your working life, fair is keeping the government's snout out of your trough. To a worker, fair is receiving a reasonable wage for the work done. To an investor, fair is receiving a reasonable return for funds invested. To someone who has spent 12 years studying and first working full time in their 30s, fair is earning a six figure income. I don't like what I' seeing in Australia at present. Aided and abetted by some pretty poor standard journalism, people seem to treat the government trough as something separate from themselves. Well I have some breaking news, the government trough is only and will only ever be filled by we the taxpayers.

justinian:

12 Jun 2014 3:09:32pm

Peter, as usual, touches on the right subjects and is right in his analysis ... but he seems reluctant to go far enough in his conclusions.The conflict that the Hockey's budget has brought to the surface is the conflict about basic values that the Australian people have inherited from the past and by which they want to live in the future.The conflict is about the narrow individualistic values of the rich and privileged, and collective values and ideas of solidarity that lead to socialism and egalitarianism.Joe Hockey and most workers in the media would tell you that equal opportunity and individual effort is all you need in order to to be successful in a free market system.If we join a political party in Australia we will immediately notice that this is not true in practice after less than one week of being a party member.Majority of Australians today reflect on rugged individualism as little more than selling Snake Oil under the American slogan of "sucker is born every minute."Majority of Australian are clever enough to realise that in order to hold a good job, or to become a success in any modern society, the universal dependence and reliance on other people is the rule of life.We do not invent our heritage, our HISTORY or our IDENTITY in order to please, to be made attractive to market forces.To an overwhelming extent an individual identity is made up, is socially defined, regardless to an individual effort to seem attractive.The only thing that an individuals can do is to choose to accept or reject the terms of cooperation which the others TRY to impose on him.So, it is all fine to talk about the individual responsibility and the effort without taking into account the QUALITY of human relations which we have to experience in the process.

santini:

12 Jun 2014 4:31:30pm

The redeeming feature of greed is that it is insatiable - too much is never quite enough. The top 1% of Australians are already absurdly wealthy but they still consider themselves to be barely getting by. I am fascinated by the anguish that must cause them.